Nandao is a kind of sword that is used mostly in contemporary

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

wushu exercises and forms. It is the southern variation of the "northern broadsword", or Beidao. Its blade bears some resemblance to the

butterfly sword The butterfly sword is a short dao, or single-edged sword, originally from southern China, though it has also seen use in the north. It is thought that butterfly swords date from the early 19th century. Several English language accounts from t ...

, also a southern Chinese single-bladed weapon; the main difference is the size, and the fact that the butterfly swords have D-shaped knuckle guards. The main difference with the beidao is that the nandao is mostly used two-handed due to its larger amount of weight, and it has a large metal crossguard useful in deflecting blows and hooking the opponent's weapon; also, although it is single-edged, the nandao is not curved like the northern broadsword. The differentiation between beidao and nandao appear to be rather modern. There is no historical usage of the term and few antique weapons have been found with a shape that resembles a "nandao". Therefore, it can never have been a major form as widely used as niuweidao, yanmaodao, liuyedao and the Butterfly swords. It needs momentum to be used effectively, you deflect rather than block because of this.

References

Chinese martial arts terminology Chinese swords Blade weapons Events in wushu {{Sword-stub