Destination Guide To China

GEOGRAPHY & BACKGROUND

China (Traditional Chinese: ??; Simplified Chinese: ??; Hanyu Pinyin: Zhongguó (help·info); Tongyong Pinyin: Jhongguó; Gwoyeu Romatzyh: Jonggwo) is a cultural region and ancient civilization in East Asia. As a result of the 1949 Chinese Civil War, China today is administratively divided into two states: the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). The PRC administers and governs the majority of China (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau), while the ROC administers the island groups of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, Matsu, and the disputed islands of Pratas, and Taiping in the South China Sea. However, the People's Republic of China considers Taiwan a "renegade province" and does not recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan). In contrast, the Taipei-based Republic of China (Taiwan) administers themselves as an independent sovereign state and does not recognize the Beijing-based People's Republic of China.

China has one of the world's longest periods of mostly uninterrupted civilization and one of the world's longest continuously used written language systems. The successive states and cultures of China date back more than six millennia. For centuries, China was the world's most advanced civilization, and the cultural center of East Asia, with an impact lasting to the present day. China is also home to many of the great technical inventions in world history, including the four great inventions of ancient China: paper, the compass, gunpowder, and printing.

China is composed of a vast variety of highly different landscapes, with mostly plateaus and mountains in the west, and lower lands on the east. As a result, principal rivers flow from west to east, including the Yangtze (central), the Huang He (central-east), and the Amur (northeast), and sometimes toward the south (including the Pearl River, Mekong River, and Brahmaputra), with most Chinese rivers emptying into the Pacific Ocean.

In the east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea there are extensive and densely populated alluvial plains;. On the edges of the Inner Mongolian plateau in the north, grasslands can be seen. Southern China is dominated by hills and low mountain ranges. In the central-east are the deltas of China's two major rivers, the Huang He and Yangtze River (Chang Jiang). Most of China's arable lands lie along these rivers; they were the centers of China's major ancient civilizations. Other major rivers include the Pearl River, Mekong, Brahmaputra and Amur.

In the west, the north has a great alluvial plain, and the south has a vast calcareous tableland traversed by hill ranges of moderate elevation, and the Himalayas, containing our planet's highest point Mount Everest. The northwest also has high plateaus with more arid desert landscapes such as the Takla-Makan and the Gobi Desert, which has been expanding. During many dynasties, the southwestern border of China has been the high mountains and deep valleys of Yunnan, which separate modern China from Burma, Laos and Vietnam.

The Paleozoic formations of China, excepting only the upper part of the Carboniferous system, are marine, while the Mesozoic and Tertiary deposits are estuarine and freshwater or else of terrestrial origin. Groups of volcanic cones occur in the Great Plain of north China. In the Liaodong and Shandong Peninsulas, there are basaltic plateaus.

The climate of China varies greatly. The northern zone (containing Beijing) has winters of Arctic severity. The central zone (containing Shanghai) has a temperate climate. The southern zone (containing Guangzhou) has a subtropical climate.

Due to a prolonged drought and poor agricultural practices, dust storms have become usual in the spring in China.[2] Dust has blown to southern China and Taiwan, and has even reached the West Coast of the United States. Water, erosion, and pollution control have become important issues in China's relations with other countries.

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