system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: China vs Porcelain vs Ceramic vs Earthenware

Some of these may be overlapping categories but I have no idea.
gpt
All of these are examples of Ceramics, which covers the entire set of the other items you are asking about. Ceramics are typically any sort of hard shaped material formed at least partly out of Kaolinite Clay.

The main differences between the types of ceramics are:

  *  Earthenware, fired at lower temperatures than other types. It is not shiny, and is permeable to water.
  *  Stoneware, shiny types of pottery like toilet bowls, not permeable to water.
  *  Porcelain, which contains a high content of kaolinite. It's heated to the highest temperature resulting in a very hard shiny non-permeable surface.
  *  China, which is a type of soft-paste porcelain that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material, and kaolinite. These extra ingredients give it a high strength relative to other types of ceramics, allowing for thinner products (dishes etc...) Other than that it is prepared the same way as Porcelain, and in fact many items referred to as "China" are actually "Porcelain" instead.