Country:  China

OVERVIEW

China (People’s Republic of China or PRC), whose name represents already its greatness; the greatness of land, the greatness of history and culture, and the greatness of power, is now one of the most visited world destinations. China used to be the hub of one of the important civilizations in the Oriental. Its civilization had a great influence on Asian countries through the millennium; and in its motherland itself, the exuberant civilization in the past still revives in society nowadays despite arrays of change along the history.

Confidently, China is a very charming country which offers a wide variety of attractions that require perhaps a whole life to discover all of them. Ancient history and culture inherits the precious heritage to the present world; the Great Wall, one of the world’s wonders; the scenic sight of its topography like the picturesque scene of its mountains, sea and rivers; and its various ethnic groups that daub colorfully the scene of its population, all that embody the greatness of China.

BASIC FACTS

Location: Eastern Asia, bordering the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea. 

Capital: Beijing

Currency: Yuan

 Labor force: 700 million

Area:  Total: 9,596,960 square kilometers

• Land: 9,326,410 square kilometers
• Water: 270,550 square kilometers

Its size is slightly smaller than the US, ranking the world fourth-largest country after Russia, Canada, and US.

Boundaries: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burma, Hong Kong, India, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Vietnam.

Coastline: 14,500 kilometers

Climate: Extremely divers; tropical in the south to sub arctic in the north.

Terrain: Mostly mountains, high plateaus, deserts in the west; plains, deltas, and hills in the east.

Population 

Total: 1,273,111,290 (July 2001est.)

Nationality: Chinese

Ethnic groups: Han Chinese 91.9%, Zhaung, Uygur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi, Korean, and other nationalities 8.1%

Age Structure:

• 0-14 years: 25.01%
• 15-64 years: 67.88%
• 65 years and over: 7.11%

Population growth rate:  0.88%

• Birth rate: 15.95 births/1,000 population
• Death rate: 6.74 deaths/1,000 population

Infant mortality rate: 28.08 deaths/1,000 live births (2001 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:

• Total population: 71.62 years
•  Male: 69.81 years
• Female: 73.59 years

Total fertility rate: 1.82 children born/woman (2001est.)

Religions: Taoist, Buddhist, and Muslim 2-3%, Christian 1% (est.) Note: officially atheist

Languages: Standard Chinese or Mandarin, Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Miana (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, and minority languages.

Literacy: Age 15 and over can read and write
Total population: 81.5%; male 89.9%, female 72.7%

GEOGRAPHY

The vast China is situated in the southern part of the Eurasian Continent; its territory extends over 40 latitudes from north to south, embracing the equatorial belt, the tropics, the sub tropics, the moderate temperate zone and the cold temperate zone. And from east to west, it covers over 62 longitudes, allowing a great diversity of topography; forests, grassland, deserts, plains, hilly lands, and high lands. Its boundaries are long joined with its neighbors both by land borders and fluvial borders.

It shares land borders with Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, and North Korea.

A number of points of its boundaries were in dispute for several times through out the years with its giant neighbors in the north like Russia and the other one in the south like India. The border friction in the northeast with Soviet Union produced a tense situation which sometimes ended up with confrontation between massed troops of each side. With India, a major dispute between China and India on the northern edge of their shared border, where the Aksai Chin area of northeastern Jammu and Kashmir is under Chinese control, but claimed by India. Eastwards from Bhutan and Kashmir is administered by India, but claimed by China. The border friction between these two countries seems to see only the constant disputes and unconcluded resolution. Moreover, the Spratly Island is still in friction between the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei. Until now, the boundary issue remains unsolved and is subject to the further conflict.

With its extended territory, China possesses the extreme diversity of physiographic. The terrain is characterized by the two-third area of mountains; there are hundreds of peaks which reach 7,000 meters of their altitude and thousands of them levitating at the elevation above 6,000 meters. The 14 highest peaks in the world can be found in China. The other feature of China geography is that most of land surface is like a staircase descending from west to east. The country can be divided then into 8 regions with its different physical geography.

1.      At the top of the staircase are the plateaus of Tibet and Qinghai in the southwest. The Tibet Highland is at the elevation of 4500 meters above sea level, considered as the “Roof of the World”. At the southern rim of the plateau is the Himalayan Range, with peaks averaging 6000 meters high, among which Mt. Everest, known to the Chinese as Shengmufeng, reaches more than 8,000 meters. Many important rivers of China have their provenance from this region.

2.      The Xinjiang-Inner Mongolia Uplands include the eastern Ordos Desert, the southern part of the Gobi desert, and the Turpan depression which average only 154 meters above sea level, the lowest land in the world after Dead Sea. In this region locates the Tarim Basin which boasts to be the largest basin in the world, measuring 1500 kilometers from east to west and 600 kilometers from north to south. The largest desert of China- Taklamakan Desert extensively sprawls in this area as well.

3.      Inner-Mongolian Border Uplands include the Gobi and the eastern lowlands, featured by uneven terrain and little agricultural area, but the southern area is rich of fertile loess soil deposited by wind.

4.      Eastern Highlands includes the Shandong Peninsula and the northeast coastal region. The hilly surface is the dominant feature of the region and the coal is rich here.

5.      Eastern Lowland is the granary of the country; the physical condition provides many plains which are good for farming. The three main plains in the region are the Manchurian Plain with large coal and iron deposits, the North China Plain, productive in wheat though subject to flooding, and the Yangtze River Valley, flat land with good rainfall, including the fertile deltas; Nanjing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou.

6.      Central Uplands is located between the eastern lowlands and the Tibetan Plateau dipping down its elevation to less than 1000 meters above sea level.

7.      The Sichuan Basin is a proper area for agriculture due to its mild climate and long growing season.

8.      Southern Uplands cover southeast China and Hainan. The surface is even at the same level with the delta of the Pearl River where Guangzhou is located.

Most of China’s rivers flow east; they flow from west and empty into the Pacific Ocean except a few in the southwest China which flow southwards. There are four main rivers that nourish the country:

- Yangtze River or Chang Jiang River: The nation’s longest river and the third-longest in the world after the Nile and the Amazon originates on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and traverses 6,300 kilometers through the heart of the country, draining an area of 1.8 million square kilometers before emptying into the East China Sea. Among the river’s pass, it is the Sichuan Basin which is very fertile and productive of the variety of corps. Moreover, the river is the natural barrage of the cultural division; to the north of the river, the cultivation of people live around there is mostly the wheat and sweet potatoes whereas to south, the rice is widely grown.

- Huang He River or the Yellow River: The River is considered very important to China due to its historical and cultural aspect. Huang He River was the first hub of the exuberant civilization in the past. Along the course of the river, edged by the fertile plains rich of loess, the yellow soil, this is the good area for cultivation though its water causes annually disastrous inundation. The River runs through 5460 kilometers of its length, measuring the second-largest river of China. 

- Salween River or Nu Jiang River: Originated from the eastern Tibet, the River flows into Yunnan province and then into Myanmar.   

- Lancang Jiang River or Mekong River: Coming also from the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau, the River run southwards instead to the east into Indochina Region; Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.   

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