The 1.3 billion people that live in China make this country by far the most populated country in the world: it contains more than 1/5 of the total world population. And with its 9.6 million square kilometers China is also the world’s third largest country in size (after Russia and Canada). The name China can be freely translated to ‘middle kingdom’. There are many dialects of the Chinese language; the most spoken one is ‘Mandarin’ which is spoken by 70% of the population.
The stalemate of the last Chinese Civil War (1927-1950) has resulted in two political states using the name China. One being the Republic of China (ROC), commonly known as ‘Taiwan’, which controls the island of Taiwan and its surrounding islands. The other - far bigger - one is the People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly just known as ‘China’, which controls mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. We will only visit the People’s Republic of China.
Chinas landscape ranges from mostly plateaus and mountains in the west to lower lands in the east. In the southeast lie the Himalayas, containing Earth’s highest point: the Mount Everest.
The climate of China varies greatly. The northern zone, (containing Beijing) and the central zone, (containing Shanghai) has summer daytime temperatures of more than 30 degrees Celsius and winters of Arctic severity. The southern zone (containing Hong Kong) has a subtropical climate with very hot summers and mild winters.
Chinese civilization is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations consisting of states and cultures dating back more than six millennia. It has the world's longest continuously used written language system. China also played major part in the advancement of the world, for example by some very important inventions like the compass, paper, gunpowder, and printing, all made in China.
At the moment China is officially a republic but the political system still has strong communistic influences. The chief of state is the president and as of 1993 the president is also the leader of the communistic party. The current president is called Hu Jintao.
Economically China is growing rapidly the last decennia: sometimes even more than 9% a year. More than half of the Chinese people are working in the agriculture. They farm the most rice and wheat of all countries in the world.
The tourism in China is also starting to grow very quickly. We are still a little early but in 2020 China is expected to be the most important holiday country in the world.
