China
|
| Basic Facts |
| Country name |
conventional long form: People's Republic of China
conventional short form: China local long form: Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo local short form: Zhongguo abbreviation: PRC |
| Gevernment type | Communist state |
| Capital |
name: Beijing
geographic coordinates: 39 56 N, 116 24 E time difference: UTC+8 (13 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) note: despite its size, all of China falls within one time zone |
| Flag description | red with a large yellow five-pointed star and four smaller yellow five-pointed stars (arranged in a vertical arc toward the middle of the flag) in the upper hoist-side corner |
| Currency | yuan (CNY); note - also referred to as the Renminbi (RMB) |
| Internet country code | .cn |
| Ports and terminals | Dalian, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Shanghai |
| Agriculture products | rice, wheat, potatoes, corn, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, apples, cotton, oilseed; pork; fish |
| Industries | mining and ore processing, iron, steel, aluminum, and other metals, coal; machine building; armaments; textiles and apparel; petroleum; cement; chemicals; fertilizers; consumer products, including footwear, toys, and electronics; food processing; transportation equipment, including automobiles, rail cars and locomotives, ships, and aircraft; telecommunications equipment, commercial space launch vehicles, satellites |
| Geography |
| Location | Eastern Asia, bordering the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea, between North Korea and Vietnam |
| Coordinates | 35 00 N, 105 00 E |
| Continent | Asia |
| Area |
total: 9,596,960 sq km
land: 9,326,410 sq km water: 270,550 sq km |
| Boundaries |
total: 22,117 km
border countries: Afghanistan 76 km, Bhutan 470 km, Burma 2,185 km, India 3,380 km, Kazakhstan 1,533 km, North Korea 1,416 km, Kyrgyzstan 858 km, Laos 423 km, Mongolia 4,677 km, Nepal 1,236 km, Pakistan 523 km, Russia (northeast) 3,605 km, Russia (northwest) 40 km, Tajikistan 414 km, Vietnam 1,281 km regional borders: Hong Kong 30 km, Macau 0.34 km |
| Coastline | 14,500 km |
| Climate | extremely diverse; tropical in south to subarctic in north |
| Terrain | mostly mountains, high plateaus, deserts in west; plains, deltas, and hills in east |
| Natural resources | coal, iron ore, petroleum, natural gas, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminum, lead, zinc, uranium, hydropower potential (world's largest) |
| Natural hazards | frequent typhoons (about five per year along southern and eastern coasts); damaging floods; tsunamis; earthquakes; droughts; land subsidence |
| People |
| Population | 1,313,973,713 (July 2006 est.) |
| Ethnic groups | Han Chinese 91.9%, Zhuang, Uygur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi, Korean, and other nationalities 8.1% |
| Religions | Daoist (Taoist), Buddhist, Christian 3%-4%, Muslim 1%-2%
note: officially atheist (2002 est.) |
| Languages | Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, minority languages (see Ethnic groups entry) |
