Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically
processing cellulosefibres derived from wood, rags, grasses, or other vegetable sources
in water, draining the water through a fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed on
the surface, followed by pressing and drying. Although paper was originally made in
single sheets by hand, almost all is now made on large machines—some making reels
10 metres wide, running at 2,000 metres per minute and up to 600,000 tonnes a year. [not
verified in body]
It is a versatile material with many uses, including printing, painting, graphics,
signage, design, packaging, decorating, writing, and cleaning. It may also be used as
filter paper, wallpaper, book endpaper, conservation paper, laminated worktops, toilet
tissue, currency, and security paper, or in a number of industrial and construction
processes.
Paper
Paper products: book, toilet paper, ruled
paper, carton, egg box
Material type Thin material
Physical properties
Density (ρ) From 10 gsm to 3000 gsm
Paper
"Paper" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom)
Chinese characters
Traditional Chinese 紙
Simplified Chinese 纸
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin zhǐ
IPA [ʈʂɨ̀]
Wu
Shanghainese tsy5
Romanization
Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanization jí
Jyutping zi2
Southern Min
Hokkien POJ choá
Tâi-lô tsuá
The papermaking process developed in east Asia, probably China, at least as early as
105 CE,[1] by the Han court eunuch Cai Lun, although the earliest archaeological
fragments of paper derive from the 2nd century BCE in China. [2] The modern pulp and
paper industry is global, with China leading its production and the United States
following.
