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I know of four countries with a specific kanji besides Japan: China, the
Netherlands, the USA and UK. The last two must be quite recent (I presume 19th
century) but I wonder on the details and context of the selection.

There is of course 蘭, abbreviated from 阿蘭陀 (o-ran-da/holland) used in 蘭学,
dutch learning.
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kanji culture history loanwords demonyms
When and how did USA and UK come to be written as [米]{べい}[国]{こく} and [英]{えい}[国]{こく}?
Most, if not all, of foreign country Kanji names (not including names with
obvious different origins such as China and Korea) - and there are many more
than 4 - are exactly this kind of abbreviation from a phonetic Kanji spelling
of the country's name. 米 is an abbreviation of 亜米利加, 英 is 英吉利.

Look in any Japanese dictionary and you'll find most prominent countries have
this kind of Kanji spelling and abbreviation.
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2011-06-23T08:55:04.717
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Good question!

**「米国」** According to Japanese Wikipedia, the pronunciation of American was
メリケン during the Meiji period, and was rendered into kanji as 「米利堅」

Since the first character is 米 （べい、まい、めい） the abbreviation became 米国. This was
despite the fact that the full kanji representation of アメリカ is 亜米利加. I suspect
it was because 亜 is already used to represent Asia.

[Source](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AB%E5%90%88%E8%A1%86%E5%9B%BD)

**「英国」** Similarly, the Meiji era phoneticisation of England was エイギリ or 英吉利
in kanji. Taking the first kanji of this for the abbreviation we get 英国.

Since England is also synonymous in Japan with Great Britain, 大不列頓 or だい-ブリテン
was also used (in Meiji times, not now)

[Source](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8B%B1%E5%9B%BD)

Here is a complete list of (nearly) all countries foreign to Japan and their
corresponding kanji-fied versions.

[国名の漢字表記一覧](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E5%90%8D%E3%81%AE%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E8%A1%A8%E8%A8%98%E4%B8%80%E8%A6%A7#.E3.83.A8.E3.83.BC.E3.83.AD.E3.83.83.E3.83.91.E3.81.AE.E5.9B.BD.E3.80.85)

Very interesting link that one.
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