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Location: Eastern Asia, bordering the East China Sea, Korea
Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea, between North Korea and Vietnam
Geographic coordinates: 35 00 N, 105 00 E
Map references: Asia
Area:
total: 9,596,960 sq km
land: 9,326,410 sq km
water: 270,550 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly smaller than the US
Land boundaries:
total: 22,143.34 km
border countries: Afghanistan 76 km, Bhutan 470 km, Burma
2,185 km, Hong Kong 30 km, India 3,380 km, Kazakhstan 1,533 km,
North Korea 1,416 km, Kyrgyzstan 858 km, Laos 423 km, Macau 0.34
km, Mongolia 4,673 km, Nepal 1,236 km, Pakistan 523 km, Russia (northeast)
3,605 km, Russia (northwest) 40 km, Tajikistan 414 km, Vietnam 1,281
km
Coastline: 14,500 km
Maritime claims:
contiguous zone: 24 nm
continental shelf: 200 nm or to the edge of the continental
margin
territorial sea: 12 nm
Climate: extremely diverse; tropical in south to subarctic
in north
Terrain: mostly mountains, high plateaus, deserts in west;
plains, deltas, and hills in east
Elevation extremes:
lowest point: Turpan Pendi -154 m
highest point: Mount Everest 8,850 m (1999 est.)
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)
Land use:
arable land: 10%
permanent crops: 0%
permanent pastures: 43%
forests and woodland: 14%
other: 33% (1993 est.)
Irrigated land: 498,720 sq km (1993 est.)
Natural hazards: frequent typhoons (about five per year
along southern and eastern coasts); damaging floods; tsunamis; earthquakes;
droughts
Environment - current issues: air pollution (greenhouse
gases, sulfur dioxide particulates) from reliance on coal, produces
acid rain; water shortages, particularly in the north; water pollution
from untreated wastes; deforestation; estimated loss of one-fifth
of agricultural land since 1949 to soil erosion and economic development;
desertification; trade in endangered species
Environment - international agreements:
party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty,
Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species,
Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection,
Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands,
Whaling
signed, but not ratified: Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol,
Nuclear Test Ban
Geography - note: world's fourth-largest country (after
Russia, Canada, and US)
Geography
China has an area of about 9.6 million square km and shares its
borders with the deserts of Mongolia to the north, the inhospitable
Tibetan plateau and the Himalayas to the west. The East and South
China seas borders the eastern side of this country.
Climate
Most of the country's climate is temperate. However, the climate
ranges from bitterly cold to scorching hot. Temperatures in the
north can drop to as low as -40 degrees Celsius in winter (December-March)
and rise to as high as 38 degrees in summer (May-August). The southern
part of China experiences a more tropical climate than its northern
counterpart. Typhoons occasionally hit the southeast coast between
July and September.
Background:
For most of its 3,500 years of history, China led the world in agriculture,
crafts, and science, then fell behind in the 19th century when the
Industrial Revolution gave the West clear superiority in military
and economic affairs.
In the first half of the 20th century, China continued to suffer
from major famines, civil unrest, military defeat, and foreign occupation.
After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established
a dictatorship that, while ensuring China's autonomy, imposed strict
controls over all aspects of life and cost the lives of tens of
millions of people.
After 1978, his successor DENG Xiaoping decentralized economic decision
making; output quadrupled in the next 20 years.
Political controls remain tight at the same time economic controls
have been weakening.
Present issues are: incorporating Hong Kong into the Chinese system;
closing down inefficient state-owned enterprises; modernizing the
military; fighting corruption; and providing support to tens of
millions of displaced workers.
For centuries China has stood as a leading civilization, outpacing
the rest of the world in the arts and sciences. But in the first
half of the 20th century, China was beset by major famines, civil
unrest, military defeats, and foreign occupation.
After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established
a dictatorship that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed
strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of
millions of people.
After 1978, his successor DENG Xiaoping decentralized economic decision
making. Output quadrupled in the next 20 years and China now has
the world's second largest GDP. Political controls remain tight
even while economic controls continue to weaken.
China
GEOGRAPHY
Size: Area about 9.6 million square kilometers;
east to west distance about 5,000 kilometers, from the Heilong Jiang
(Amur River) to Pamir Mountains in Central Asia; north to south
distance approximately 4,050 kilometers, from Heilongjiang Province
to Hainan Island in south, and another 1,450 kilometers further
south to Zengmu Shoal, territorial claim off north coast of Malaysia.
Topography:Main topographic features include Qing-Zang
(Qinghai-Tibet) Plateau 4,000 meters above sea level and Kunlun,
Qin Ling, and Greater Hinggan ranges. Longest of country's numerous
rivers, Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) and Huang He (Yellow River),
extend for some 6,300 and 5,400 kilometers, respectively.
Climate: Most of country in temperate belt. Complex
climatic patterns ranging from cold-temperate north to tropical
south. Precipitation varies regionally; temperatures range from
minus 30°C in north in January to 28°C in south in July.
Alternating wet monsoon in summer, dry monsoon in winter.
Data as of July 1987
China
PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
China stretches some 5,000 kilometers across the East Asian landmass
in an erratically changing configuration of broad plains, expansive
deserts, and lofty mountain ranges, including vast areas of inhospitable
terrain. The eastern half of the country, its seacoast fringed with
offshore islands, is a region of fertile lowlands, foothills and
mountains, desert, steppes, and subtropical areas. The western half
of China is a region of sunken basins, rolling plateaus, and towering
massifs, including a portion of the highest tableland on earth.
The vastness of the country and the barrenness of the western hinterland
have important implications for defense strategy . In spite of many
good harbors along the approximately 18,000- kilometer coastline,
the nation has traditionally oriented itself not toward the sea
but inland, developing as an imperial power whose center lay in
the middle and lower reaches of the Huang He (Yellow River) on the
northern plains.
Figures for the size of China differ slightly depending on where
one draws a number of ill-defined boundaries. The official Chinese
figure is 9.6 million square kilometers, making the country substantially
smaller than the Soviet Union, slightly smaller than Canada, and
somewhat larger than the United States. China's contour is reasonably
comparable to that of the United States and lies largely at the
same latitudes.
Data as of July 1987
China
Boundaries
In 1987 China's borders, more than 20,000 kilometers of land frontier
shared with nearly all the nations of mainland East Asia, were disputed
at a number of points. In the western sector, China claimed portions
of the 41,000-square-kilometer Pamir Mountains area, a region of
soaring mountain peaks and glacial valleys where the borders of
Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Soviet Union, and China meet in Central
Asia. North and east of this region, some sections of the border
remained undemarcated in 1987. The 6,542-kilometer frontier with
the Soviet Union has been a source of continual friction. In 1954
China published maps showing substantial portions of Soviet Siberian
territory as its own. In the northeast, border friction with the
Soviet Union produced a tense situation in remote regions of Nei
Monggol Autonomous Region (Inner Mongolia) and Heilongjiang Province
along segments of the Ergun He (Argun River), Heilong Jiang (Amur
River), and Wusuli Jiang (Ussuri River) . Each side had massed troops
and had exchanged charges of border provocation in this area. In
a September 1986 speech in Vladivostok, Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev offered the Chinese a more conciliatory position on Sino-Soviet
border rivers. In 1987 the two sides resumed border talks that had
been broken off after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan .
Although the border issue remained unresolved as of late 1987, China
and the Soviet Union agreed to consider the northeastern sector
first.
A major dispute between China and India focuses 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.
Eastward from Bhutan and north of the Brahmaputra River (Yarlung
Zangbo Jiang) lies a large area controlled and administered by India
but claimed by the Chinese in the aftermath of the 1959 Tibetan
revolt. The area was demarcated by the British McMahon Line, drawn
along the Himalayas in 1914 as the Sino-Indian border; India accepts
and China rejects this boundary. In June 1980 China made its first
move in twenty years to settle the border disputes with India, proposing
that India cede the Aksai Chin area in Jammu and Kashmir to China
in return for China's recognition of the McMahon Line; India did
not accept the offer, however, preferring a sector-by-sector approach
to the problem. In July 1986 China and India held their seventh
round of border talks, but they made little headway toward resolving
the dispute. Each side, but primarily India, continued to make allegations
of incursions into its territory by the other.
China, Taiwan, and Vietnam all claim sovereignty over both the
Xisha (Paracel) and the Nansha (Spratly) islands, but the major
islands of the Xisha are occupied by China. The Philippines claims
an area known as Kalayaan (Freedom Land), which excludes the Nansha
in the west and some reefs in the south. Malaysia claims the islands
and reefs in the southernmost area, and there also is a potential
for dispute over the islands with Brunei.
The China-Burma border issue was settled October 1, 1960, by the
signing of the Sino-Burmese Boundary Treaty. The first joint inspection
of the border was completed successfully in June 1986. In 1987 the
island province of Taiwan continued to be under the control of the
Guomindang authorities .
Data as of July 1987
China
Terrain and Drainage
Terrain and vegetation vary greatly in China. Mountains, hills,
and highlands cover about 66 percent of the nation's territory,
impeding communication and leaving limited level land for agriculture.
Most ranges, including all the major ones, trend eastwest . In the
southwest, the Himalayas and the Kunlun Mountains enclose the Qing
Zang Plateau, which encompasses most of Xizang Autonomous Region
(also known as Tibet) and part of Qinghai Province. It is the most
extensive plateau in the world, where elevations average more than
4,000 meters above sea level and the loftiest summits rise to more
than 7,200 meters.
From the Qing Zang Plateau, other less-elevated highlands, rugged
east-west trending mountains, and plateaus interrupted by deep depressions
fan out to the north and east. A continental scarp marks the eastern
margin of this territory extending from the Greater Hinggan Range
in northeastern China, through the Taihang Shan (a range of mountains
overlooking the North China Plain) to the eastern edge of the Yunnan-Guizhou
Plateau in the south . Virtually all of the low-lying areas of China--the
regions of dense population and intensive cultivation--are found
east of this scarp line.
East-west ranges include some of Asia's greatest mountains. In
addition to the Himalayas and the Kunlun Mountains, there are the
Gangdise Shan (Kailas) and the Tian Shan ranges. The latter stands
between two great basins, the massive Tarim Basin to the south and
the Junggar Basin to the north. Rich deposits of coal, oil, and
metallic ores lie in the Tian Shan area. The largest inland basin
in China, the Tarim Basin measures 1,500 kilometers from east to
west and 600 kilometers from north to south at its widest parts.
The Himalayas form a natural boundary on the southwest as the Altai
Mountains do on the northwest. Lesser ranges branch out, some at
sharp angles from the major ranges. The mountains give rise to all
the principal rivers.
The spine of the Kunlun Mountains separates into several branches
as it runs eastward from the Pamir Mountains. The northernmost branches,
the Altun Shan and the Qilian Shan, rim the Qing Zang Plateau in
west-central China and overlook the Qaidam Basin, a sandy and swampy
region containing many salt lakes. A southern branch of the Kunlun
Mountains divides the watersheds of the Huang He and the Chang Jiang
(Yangtze River). The Gansu Corridor, west of the great bend in the
Huang He, was traditionally an important communications link with
Central Asia.
North of the 3,300-kilometer-long Great Wall, between Gansu Province
on the west and the Greater Hinggan Range on the east, lies the
Nei Monggol Plateau, at an average elevation of 1,000 meters above
sea level. The Yin Shan, a system of mountains with average elevations
of 1,400 meters, extends east-west through the center of this vast
desert steppe peneplain. To the south is the largest loess plateau
in the world, covering 600,000 square kilometers in Shaanxi Province,
parts of Gansu and Shanxi provinces, and some of Ningxia-Hui Autonomous
Region. Loess is a yellowish soil blown in from the Nei Monggol
deserts. The loose, loamy material travels easily in the wind, and
through the centuries it has veneered the plateau and choked the
Huang He with silt.
Because the river level drops precipitously toward the North China
Plain, where it continues a sluggish course across the delta, it
transports a heavy load of sand and mud from the upper reaches,
much of which is deposited on the flat plain. The flow is channeled
mainly by constantly repaired manmade embankments; as a result the
river flows on a raised ridge fifty meters or more above the plain,
and waterlogging, floods, and course changes have recurred over
the centuries. Traditionally, rulers were judged by their concern
for or indifference to preservation of the embankments. In the modern
era, the new leadership has been deeply committed to dealing with
the problem and has undertaken extensive flood control and conservation
measures.
Flowing from its source in the Qing Zang highlands, the Huang He
courses toward the sea through the North China Plain, the historic
center of Chinese expansion and influence. Han
people have farmed the rich alluvial soils of the plain since ancient
times, constructing the Grand Canal for north-south transport .
The plain itself is actually a continuation of the Dongbei (Manchurian)
Plain to the northeast but is separated from it by the Bo Hai Gulf,
an extension of the Huang Hai (Yellow Sea).
Like other densely populated areas of China, the plain is subject
not only to floods but to earthquakes. For example, the mining and
industrial center of Tangshan, about 165 kilometers east of Beijing,
was leveled by an earthquake in July 1976 that reportedly also killed
242,000 people and injured 164,000.
The Qin Ling mountain range, a continuation of the Kunlun Mountains,
divides the North China Plain from the Chang Jiang Delta and is
the major physiographic boundary between the two great parts of
China Proper . It
is in a sense a cultural boundary as well, influencing the distribution
of custom and language. South of the Qin Ling divide are the densely
populated and highly developed areas of the lower and middle plains
of the Chang Jiang and, on its upper reaches, the Sichuan Basin,
an area encircled by a high barrier of mountain ranges.
The country's longest and most important waterway, the Chang Jiang
is navigable over much of its length and has a vast hydroelectric
potential. Rising on the Qing Zang Plateau, the Chang Jiang 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. The roughly 300 million people who live along its middle and
lower reaches cultivate a great rice- and wheat-producing area.
The Sichuan Basin, favored by a mild, humid climate and a long growing
season, produces a rich variety of crops; it is also a leading silk-producing
area and an important industrial region with substantial mineral
resources.
Second only to the Qin Ling as an internal boundary is the Nan
Ling, the southernmost of the east-west mountain ranges. The Nan
Ling overlooks the part of China where a tropical climate permits
two crops of rice to be grown each year. Southeast of the mountains
lies a coastal, hilly region of small deltas and narrow valley plains;
the drainage area of the Zhu Jiang (Pearl River) and its associated
network of rivers occupies much of the region to the south. West
of the Nan Ling, the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau rises in two steps,
averaging 1,200 and 1,800 meters in elevation, respectively, toward
the precipitous mountain regions of the eastern Qing Zang Plateau.
The Hai He, like the Zhu Jiang and other major waterways, flows
from west to east. Its upper course consists of five rivers that
converge near Tianjin, then flow seventy kilometers before emptying
into the Bo Hai Gulf. Another major river, the Huai He, rises in
Henan Province and flows through several lakes before joining the
Chang Jiang near Yangzhou.
Inland drainage involving a number of upland basins in the north
and northeast accounts for about 40 percent of the country's total
drainage area. Many rivers and streams flow into lakes or diminish
in the desert. Some are useful for irrigation.
China's extensive territorial waters are principally marginal seas
of the western Pacific Ocean; these waters wash the shores of a
long and much-indented coastline and approximately 5,000 islands.
The Yellow, East China, and South China seas, too, are marginal
seas of the Pacific Ocean. More than half the coastline (predominantly
in the south) is rocky; most of the remainder is sandy. The Bay
of Hangzhou roughly divides the two kinds of shoreline.
Data as of July 1987
China
Climate
Monsoon winds, caused by differences in the heat-absorbing capacity
of the continent and the ocean, dominate the climate. Alternating
seasonal air-mass movements and accompanying winds are moist in
summer and dry in winter. The advance and retreat of the monsoons
account in large degree for the timing of the rainy season and the
amount of rainfall throughout the country. Tremendous differences
in latitude, longitude, and altitude give rise to sharp variations
in precipitation and temperature within China. Although most of
the country lies in the temperate belt, its climatic patterns are
complex.
China's northernmost point lies along the Heilong Jiang in Heilongjiang
Province in the cold-temperate zone; its southernmost point, Hainan
Island, has a tropical climate . Temperature differences in winter
are great, but in summer the diversity is considerably less. For
example, the northern portions of Heilongjiang Province experience
an average January mean temperature of below 0°C, and the reading
may drop to minus 30°C; the average July mean in the same area
may exceed 20°C. By contrast, the central and southern parts
of Guangdong Province experience an average January temperature
of above 10°C, while the July mean is about 28°C.
Precipitation varies regionally even more than temperature. China
south of the Qin Ling experiences abundant rainfall, most of it
coming with the summer monsoons. To the north and west of the range,
however, rainfall is uncertain. The farther north and west one moves,
the scantier and more uncertain it becomes. The northwest has the
lowest annual rainfall in the country and no precipitation at all
in its desert areas.
Data as of July 1987
China
Wildlife
China lies in two of the world's major zoogeographic regions, the
Palearctic and the Oriental. The Qing Zang Plateau, Xinjiang and
Nei Monggol autonomous regions, northeastern China, and all areas
north of the Huang He are in the Palearctic region. Central, southern,
and southwest China lie in the Oriental region. In the Palearctic
zone are found such important mammals as the river fox, horse, camel,
tapir, mouse hare, hamster, and jerboa. Among the species found
in the Oriental region are the civet cat, Chinese pangolin, bamboo
rat, tree shrew, and also gibbon and various other species of monkeys
and apes. Some overlap exists between the two regions because of
natural dispersal and migration, and deer or antelope, bears, wolves,
pigs, and rodents are found in all of the diverse climatic and geological
environments. The famous giant panda is found only in a limited
area along the Chang Jiang.
Data as of July 1987
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