The People's Republic of China, in East Asia, has the largest population of any country in the world and is the fourth largest country on Earth, after Russia, Canada and the United States.
More than 1.3 billion people, about one fifth of the word's population, lives in China.
China has a total area of 3,700,593 square miles (9,584,492 square kilometers).
It has coastlines on the South China Sea, the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea.
China shares borders with fourteen different countries.
The capital of China is Beijing.
Shanghai is the largest city in China.
The Great Wall of China is one of the largest structures ever built by human beings. It can be seen from space. The Great Wall runs from the Yellow Sea to Central Asia for a distance of more than 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers).
Construction of the Great Wall began around 220 BC, when separate fortifications were joined together to form one large wall. Sections were being added to the wall as late as 1640.
The official currency of China is the renminbi yuan, which is equal to 10 jiao or 100 fen.
China is a Communist state.
Eastern China is mostly lowland, while western China consists of high mountains, dry plateaus and dry basins.
China's two longest rivers are the Yangtze or (Chang Jiang) and Yellow rivers.
The Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia and the longest river on Earth, after the Nile in Africa and the Amazon in South America. The Yangtze River is 3,965 miles (6,380 kilometers) long.
The Yellow River carries more sediment than any other river in the world.
Northern China contains the North China Plain, which is made of sediment that the Yellow River carries from a loess plateau in the northwest.
This loess plateau contains the greatest expanse of loess on Earth. Loess is loose soil that consists of material that has been blown by the wind. It is very fertile but falls apart quickly.
There are swamps in the eastern part of the North China Plain and dry sand dunes in the western part.
The North China Plain is surrounded by mountain ranges, including the Changbai Shan in the south and the Great and Lesser Khingan Mountains in the south.
Hills that extend from the province of Yunnan in the west to China's southeast coast divide the Yangtze river basin from the basin of the Xi Jiang river.
Paektu-san, an extinct volcano, is the highest mountain (9,023 feet, 7,250 meters) in the Changbai Shan range. Its summit contains a crater lake.
The Amur River lies on the border between northeastern China and Russia.
Tributaries of the Amur river run through valleys in the Great Khinghan Mountains. These valleys were cut by glaciers between 3 and 10 million years ago.
Wu Jiang Gorge in eastern China was created when the Yungui Gaoyuan plateau was uplifted. This led to rivers downcutting across the area, where they created deep valleys with steep sides.
Part of the Himalayas, the world's highest mountain range, are located in western China. Mount Everest, the highest mountain above sea level on Earth, is on the border between China and Nepal. Mount Everest is 29,028 feet (8,848 meters) above sea level.
The Himalayas are the most extensive mountain range in the world, extending for more than 1,500 miles (2,500 kilometers).
Northeast of the Himalayas is the The Plateau of Tibet,the highest plateau in the world. The Tibetan Plateau makes up almost one fourth of China's total area.
Brackish lakes throughout the Tibetan Plateau were probably once part of the Tethys Sea. This was a large sea that covered the region before the Indo-Australian and Eurasian plates collided and uplifted the land.
The sources of the Yangtze, Mekong, Brahmaputra and Indus rivers are all located in the Tibetan Plateau.
North of the Tibetan plateau are the Kunlun Mountains, which separate the plateau from desert.
At the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau is a large depression known as the Qaidam Pendi. Sand dunes cover parts of the Qaidam Pendi in the west.
Sichuan Pendi, or Red Basin, is located in southwestern China at the foot of the Tibetan Plateau, between the Qin Ling mountains in the north and the Yunnan and Guizhou uplands, which lie to the south.
The mountains of the Tien Shan range in western China reach more more than 24,419 feet (7,443 meters) in height and have permanent ice fields with huge glaciers. They divide the Tarim Basin from the Dzungarian Basin.
The Tarim Basin gets all of its water from rain that falls from the Tibetan Plateau and the Tien Shan. It does not have any permanent rivers.
During the last Ice Age, a large part of the Tarim Basin was filled with a huge glacial lake. This area is now the Takla Makan Desert. Lop Nur, a salty lake bed, is a remnant of the lake. The Tarim He River flows into Lop Nur and then evaporates.
China's hottest and lowest region is the Turpan Depression. Aydingkol Hu, in the Turpan Depression, is a lake that is 505 feet (154 meters) below sea level. Temperatures around this lake can reach more than 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius).
The Bogda Shan, a mountain range in the eastern part of the Tien Shan, overlooks the Turpan Depression.
China's Altai Mountains are in the northwest. The snow leopard, an endangered species, lives in the Altai Mountains.
The Gobi desert runs from southern Mongolia into northern China. The Gobi is a cold desert, covered in bare rock rather than sand.
The eastern Gobi Desert has clusters of hexagonal basalt rock column that were created when molten basalt cooled and contracted.
China's Ordos Desert, in Nei Mongol (Inner Mongolia) receives water from the Yellow River to the north.
Southern China has limestone karst regions, where erosion has created enormous caves and jagged peaks.
Hills that extend from the province of Yunnan in the west to the southeast coast divide the Yangtze and Xi Jiang river basins.
Most of the people in China live in the eastern part of the country. There are more than thirty cities in eastern China with at least one million people in each of them.
However, almost seven tenths of the people in China live in rural areas.
91% of the people in China are Han, 1% are Hui, 1% are Miao, 1% are Manchu, 1% are Zhuang and the rest belong to other ethnic groups.
Mandarin is the official language of China. Wu, Cantonese, Hsiang, Min, Hakka and Kan are also spoken.
Tibetan is an official language in Xizang (Tibet), Mongolian is an official language in Nei Mongol and Uyghur is an official language in Xinjiang Uyghur.
China is officially an atheist country and the majority of people claim to be non-religious. However, there are Buddhists, Muslims and people who practice traditional religions.
About half of China's workforce is involved in agriculture.
The most important crops are rice, soybeans, wheat, peanuts, cotton, hemp and tobacco.
About 90% of the land in China cannot be used for cultivation.
China has reserves of oil, natural gas and coal.
It is an important producer of gold, copper, iron ore, molybdenum and asbestos.
Primary exports are machinery, toys, sports equipment, textiles and footwear.
Manufacturing has increased substantially since economic reforms were enacted in the early 1980s.
Hong Kong is an important link for international trade.
China has the longest unbroken cultural history of any country in the world, with a civilization that arouse. The Chinese Empire probably arose around 2000 BC.
China had a feudal empire until Communism, was established in 1949, under the leadership of Mao Zedong,
During Mao's Cultural Revolution, farming was communalized and industry was forced to develop at a rapid pace. Poor planning resulted in production failures and an enormous famine that resulted in the deaths of about 50 million people.
Mao had many of his enemies purged.
He died in 1976.
Trade with the west was expanded in the 1980s, when China began to reform its economy
China has occupied Xizang (Tibet) since 1950. The Chinese government has repressed Tibet's Buddhist culture. The Potala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, was once the home of the Dalai Lama.
Although Taiwan claimed independence from China after it was declared a Communist republic, China does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country.
Hong Kong was under British control until 1997, when a 99-year lease ended.
Macao was a Portuguese territory until 1999, when it was returned to China.
China is divided into 22 provinces, 4 municipalities, 2 special administrative regions and 5 autonomous regions. The autonomous regions, in the west and south, were established for China's primary ethnic minorities.
The provinces of China and their capitals are, in alphabetical order:
(China does not recognize Taiwan's independence and considers Taiwan to be China's 23rd province.)
The municipalities are:
The special administrative regions are:
The autonomous regions are:
| Beijing China Guides http://www.beijingchinaguides.com Beijing is the capital city of the People's Republic of China. In China, the city has had many names. Between 1911 and 1949, it was known as Beiping or "Northern Peace". The name was changed because jing means "capital" and the Kuomintang government in Nanjing wanted to emphasize that Beijing was not the capital of China. Curiously, many maps of China from Taiwan still use the old name, although most people in Taiwan call the city Beijing. http://www.beijingchinaguides.com | |
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