China Country Info - Asia

Description and Basic Information

China with its capital Beijing is located in Asia (Eastern Asia, bordering the East China Sea). It covers some 9,596,961 square kilometres (slightly smaller than the US) with 1,330,044,000 citizens. Chinese and are the the languages commonly used by the people in China. Laos, Bhutan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam and India are bordering countries.

China is a vast country in Eastern Asia with the world's largest population. For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences. Paper, gunpowder, the compass or printing. China is a one-party authoritarian state ruled by the Communist Party of China. The government consists of an executive branch known as the State Council. China is a very diverse place with large variations in culture, language, customs and economic levels. China is a huge country with endless and affordable travel opportunities. During holidays, however, millions of migrant workers return home and millions of other Chinese travel within the country. Travelers may want to seriously consider scheduling to avoid being on the road or air during the major holidays. Generally International Driving Permits are not recognized, which doesn't allows foreigners to drive in China without a Chinese license. China's attractions are endless and you will never run out of things to see. Especially near the coastal areas, if you run out of things to see in one city, the next one is usually just a short train ride away. If you are planning to spend a longer time in China then you may want to consider learning some of the traditional arts. Food in China varies widely from region to region so the term Chinese food is pretty much a blanket term, just like Western food. While visiting, relax your inhibitions and try a bit of everything. Although you may hear locals complain about increasing crime rate, violent crime remains low. Many tourists will more likely feel safer in China than in their home country.

Pictures from Capital (Beijing)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About China

The landscape features mostly mountains, high plateaus, deserts in west and plains, deltas, and hills in east. The average density of population is about 138 per km². The climate in China can be described as extremely diverse with tropical in south to subarctic in north. Potential threats by nature are frequent typhoons (about five per year along southern and eastern coasts) or damaging floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, droughts or land subsidence.

To reach someone in China dial +86 prior to a number. There are 313,680,000 installed telephones. And there are 747,000,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".cn". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 220V - 50Hz. The following list are the 31 regions/states in China we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Chinese population grew at a rate of 0.49% (or by 6,570,898 citizens). With 9,164,674 deaths and 16,187,820 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 0.53%. -452,248 persons more in total emmigrated from the country than immigrated.

An overview of age distribution in China: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.