According to topschoolsintheusa, the official name is the People’s Republic of China, PRC (People’s Republic of China). It is located in the eastern part of the Eurasian continent on the western coast of the Pacific Ocean. The area is 9.6 million km2, the population is 1284.53 million people. (late 2002). The official language is Chinese. The capital is Beijing (14.23 million people with adjacent counties, end of 2002). Public holidays: Chinese New Year according to the agricultural calendar (Spring Festival) – January-February according to the Gregorian calendar; Founding Day of the People’s Republic of China October 1. The monetary unit is the yuan (jen-minbi).
The People’s Republic of China has: the Xianggang Special Administrative Region (SAR) (Hong Kong), the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), both in Southeast China.
In the East China Sea is the island of Taiwan, separated from the mainland by the Taiwan Strait, which China considers the 23rd province.
Member of 677 international organizations, incl. UN (since 1971) and its specialized organizations, WTO (since 2001), APEC (since 1991), IMF, IDA, etc.
Geography of China
It is located from west to east from 73° east longitude west of Wujia County in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on the Pamir Highlands to 135° east longitude at the confluence of the Amur (Heilongjiang) and Ussuri (Usulijang) rivers; from north to south from 53° north latitude from the median line of the Amur River (Heilongjiang) near Mohe to the 4° southern tip of the Nanshatsyundao archipelago at Cape Zengmuansha.
The coast of the country is washed in the east and southeast by the waters of the Bohai Gulf, the Yellow, East China, South China Seas and the Gulf of Tonkin.
In the vast sea area belonging to China, there are 5400 islands. The largest of them are Taiwan – 36 thousand km2 and Hainan – 34 thousand km2. The length of the coastline of the continent is 18 thousand km. In its northern part, it forms the Liaodong Peninsula (Liaoning Province) and the Shandong Peninsula (Shandong Province), and in the southern part, opposite Hainan Island, the Leizhou Peninsula (Guangdong Province). There are many natural harbors, on the basis of which the most important seaports of the country operate – Dalian, Qinghuangdao, Tianjin, Yantai, Qingdao, Lianyungang, Nantong, Shanghai, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Guangzhou, Zhanjiang and Beihai.
The length of the land border is 22,800 km. China borders in the northeast on the DPRK (1416 km); in the northeast and north with the Russian Federation (3605 km and 40 km), in the north with Mongolia (4673 km); in the northwest with Kazakhstan (1533 km) and Kyrgyzstan (858 km); in the west with Tajikistan (414 km), Afghanistan (76 km), Pakistan (523 km); in the southwest and south with India (3380 km); in the south with Nepal (1236 km), Bhutan (470 km), Myanmar (2185 km), Laos (423 km) and Vietnam (1281 km). In the east and southeast, China has maritime borders with the Republic of Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
The landscape of the country is complex and diverse. One of the main features of the country’s landscape is mountainousness. Mountains, plateaus and uplands make up to 65% of the territory. The surface has a general slope from west to east in the form of a four-step staircase. The top of the stairs is located at the height of St. 4000 m above sea level The Tibetan Plateau, known as the “Roof of the World”. On this plateau are the mountain ranges of Kunlun, Gandishishan, the Himalayas, as well as many glaciers, the highest peak in the world, Chomolungma – 8848 m. hollows. The average height above sea level is 1000-2000 m. The third step begins in the east below the above line and reaches the coast. Its average height is 500-1000 m above sea level, it includes the Northeast and North China Plains and the valley along the lower and middle reaches of the Yangtze River. The fourth stage consists of vast areas of the continental shelf, formed by shallows and islands in the water area adjacent to the mainland.
More than 1,500 rivers flow through China with a total length of St. 220 thousand km. The rivers of China form internal and external systems. Most of them flow from west to east and empty into the Pacific Ocean (with the exception of several rivers in southwestern China), some of them have access to the Arctic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. The total annual flow of rivers – more than 2700 billion m3 – is approximately equal to the total flow of all rivers in Europe. Hydropower reserves are estimated at 680 million kW. The main rivers of China are the Yangtze (Changjiang) – length 6300 km, basin area 1,807,199 km2, Huang He – length 5464 km, basin area 752,443 km2, Heilongjiang (Amur) – length 3420 km, basin area 1,620,170 km2 Chinese territory – 254,796 km2), Zhujiang – length 2197 km, basin area 452,616 km2, Lancangjiang (Mekong) – length 2153 km, basin area 161,430 km2, Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) – length 2057 km, basin area 240 280 km2. The longest inland river is the Tarim in Xinjiang with a length of 2,179 km.
On the territory of China there is also a large hydraulic structure of antiquity – the Grand Canal (Dayunhe), which begins in the north in Beijing and ends in the south in Hangzhou (Zhejiang Province). Its total length is 1801 km. This canal connects the basins of the Haihe, Huanghe, Huaihe, Yangtze and Qiantangjiang rivers.
There are many lakes in China, their total area is approximately 80,000 km2. Lakes in China can also be divided into external and internal. The external ones include freshwater lakes rich in fish and other aquatic products in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, such as Poyang in Jiangxi Province, an area of 3583 km2, a depth of 16 m; Dongtinghu in Hunan province, area 2820 km2, depth 30.8 m; Taihu in Jiangsu province, area 2425 km2, depth 3.33 m, as well as Lake Xingkai (Hanka) in Heilongjiang province on the border with the Russian Federation, total area 4500 km2 (1/3 is located in Chinese territory), depth 10 m. K salt lakes are inland, the largest of which is Qinghai in the province of the same name, with an area of 4583 km2, a depth of 32.8 m. Among the inland lakes, there are many dried ones, such as Lop Nor.
The plains of northeastern China consist of the Sanjiang lowland, located along the lower reaches of the Songhua River between the Amur and Ussuri, and another vast lowland, located in its northern part along the middle course of the Songhua River and in its southern part along the course of another large river in the northeast, the Liaohe. Between themselves, they are connected by a narrow valley of the Songhua River and together form the Songliao Plain. This plain extends to the Liaodong Gulf and is connected there with the Great Plain of China, the largest in the country. The Great Plain of China stretches from the Great Wall of China in the north to the Yangtze River in the south.
The vast territory of China has diverse types of soil cover. The main agricultural regions are the plains of Northeast China, the Great Plain of China, the plain in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Pearl River Delta, and the Sichuan Basin. Arable land makes up 10% of the territory, meadows and pastures – 31%. The main agricultural regions are the plains of Northeast and North China, the plains in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Pearl River Delta, and the Sichuan Basin. Wheat, corn, soybeans, kaoliang, sugar beet and bast crops are grown on the Northeast Plain with its black soil. The North China Plain has brown soils, where wheat, corn, millet, cotton, etc. are grown. The plain in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River is low and flat, there are many reservoirs where freshwater fish species are bred. This is an ideal place to grow many crops, incl. tea. In the Sichuan depression, with its red soils and a warm and humid climate, agricultural work is carried out all year round and abundant harvests of flooded rice, rapeseed and citrus fruits are gathered.
