What does 경지 (境地) literally mean?

 ANSWER: bordered (境) land (地) or land with borders

The first definition for 경지 (境地) in my Korea-English dictionary is "a state," "a condition," "a stage," or "circumstances," but the word literally means "bordered (境) land (地)" since 경 (境) can mean either "border" or "boundary" and 지 (地) can mean "place" or "land."

So, how did a word that literally means "bordered land" (지경) come to mean "a state" or "a condition"?

In English, the word "state" can mean either "a country (with borders)" or "a condition," so when the Chinese first saw the English word "state" with the meaning of "condition," I wonder if they misinterpreted it to mean the "state" meaning "country" and then later just continued to use the word 경지 (境地) to mean both the "country" state and the "condition" state?

It just seems strange to me that the Korean word 경지 (境地) has a double meaning similar to that of the English word "state." Can it just be a coincidence?

By the way, if you switch the order of the Chinese characters in 경지 (境地), you get the word 지경 (地境), which my Korean-English dictionary translates both as "a border" and as "a condition." That means 경지 and 지경 have similar meanings, except that the first definition of 경지 is "a condition" while the first definition of of 지경 is "a border."

From Dong-A's Korean-English Dictionary

From Dong-A's English-Korean Dictionary