Why was the concept of dragons popular among many cultures that are very different and geographically far apart? For example, why is the idea of dragons conceptually similar (great, reptilian, fire-breathing creatures) in cultures in places such as Wales and China, despite being very far apart in almost every other way?
u/artfulorpheus has given a good answer to a similar question:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7sj57y/origin_of_dragon_mythology/
Particular to this post, fair to note that the idea these are so similar is largely induced by the fact that we have decided to translate 龍lóng as ‘dragon’, but the actual attributes they share are much less compelling.
Great, reptilian: Dragons are largely ‘snake-based’ both etymologically and mythologically in the West, with Greek and Roman origins developing through the medieval period, but the Chinese dragon takes many forms, with influences from birds to fish. A reptilian form predominates, but then like most cultures Chinese culture has many mythical beasts based on examples from across the more impressive range of real ones. Chinese alligators and snakes are two such. Being dangerous goes along with being awe-inspiring, and it’s naturally to magnify this. Myths tend to make their creatures more impressive by making them huge.
Fire-breathing: this is generally not a feature or Chinese dragons. This has not always been a feature of European dragons either, though there are examples of serpentine creatures in Greek mythology and Slavic mythology that certainly did. It was by the later medieval period this was settled as a standard dragon attribute.
Wings are not a universal feature of either: this is a feature of one type of Chinese dragon, the yinglong, but not mentioned in the ancient or early medieval European accounts.
Other than that, the range of creatures often described in similar terms, from the Persian azhdaha to the Hebrew Leviathan (which is referred to as breathing fire but wasn’t necessarily reptilian) to the Slavic zmei and smok (snake-based, and which late references include as fire breathing - a feature that may possibly have been influenced by other European folklore) actually varied a lot more than that… but have since converged in popular culture as the Western dragon archetype has become stabilised and spread. Otherwise the large number of mythical animals and the basic attributes likely to be assigned to impressive animals based on real world examples makes the not-so similar correspondences not so remarkable, and there’s no reason to assume any deeper specific cultural links at play.