The word 汉堡包 (hànpǔbāo) is formed through a layered process of meaning and sound adaptation. It begins with the transliteration of "Hamburg" (the German city) using the characters 汉 (Hàn) and 堡 (bǎo), which together approximate the sound "Ham-burg". To this phonetic base, the character 包 (bāo), meaning "bun" or "wrap", is explicitly added to visually and conceptually represent the actual food item, the meat patty enclosed in bread, thereby transforming the foreign place name into a descriptive compound that clearly denotes the edible "hamburger sandwich".