The word 社区 is formed by combining two meaningful characters: 社, which historically represents an altar to the earth god and by extension evolved to mean "society" or an organized group, and 区, which means "area", "district", or "region". Together, they conceptually fuse the idea of a social collective with a physical or administrative zone, creating the modern term for a residential "community" or "neighborhood", a defined area where people live and interact socially. This formation is a direct semantic blend, where the meaning of the whole is a logical composite of the meanings of its parts.