蓝 from HSK Level 2 Vocabulary List

The Chinese character 蓝 (lán) for "blue" is composed of two parts: the radical 青 (qīng) and the phonetic component 蓝 (lán). The radical 青 originally meant "green" or "blue-green," and it is also used in other characters related to colors, such as 绿 (lǜ) for "green" and 靛 (diàn) for "indigo." The phonetic component 蓝 is a simplified form of the character 篮 (lán), which means "basket." The combination of these two components suggests that the character 蓝 originally referred to a bluish-green color that was associated with baskets.Over time, the meaning of 蓝 gradually shifted to refer specifically to the color blue. This is likely due to the fact that blue is a common color in nature, and it is often associated with the sky, the sea, and other natural phenomena. In modern Chinese, 蓝 is used to refer to a wide range of shades of blue, from light blue to dark blue. It is also used in a number of idioms and expressions, such as 蓝天白云 (lántiān báiyún) for "blue sky and white clouds" and 一片蓝天 (yī piàn lántiān) for "a clear blue sky."The character 蓝 is also used in the names of a number of places in China, such as the city of 蓝田 (Lántián) in Shaanxi Province and the Blue River (蓝河) in Qinghai Province. These names reflect the importance of the color blue in Chinese culture and history.