1) Climate
China has a varied climate that can be divided into seven climatic zones. (1) North East China which has cold winters that are influenced by strong northerly continental winds while summers are warm and humid with unreliable rainfall. (2) Central China which has warm humid summers with the coastal regions occasionally subject to cyclones and typhoons. (3) South China where summers are hot and humid with heavy rainfalls from April to September. (4) South West China which is mountainous with the summer temperatures moderated by altitude, while the wet winters are mild with little rain. (5) The Tibetan region which is a high plateau where winters are severe with frequent light snow and frost, while summers are warm during the day but drop to extremes at night. Rainfall is also heaviest in summer. (6) The western interior zone which has an arid desert climate with cold winters and rainfall is distributed evenly throughout the year. (7) Inner Mongolia which comprises the mountain ranges and semi-desert low-lands has an extreme continental climate with cold winters and warm summers. Rainfall is vast while strong temperature ranges in Shanghai are from 1 to 8 degrees Celsius (34 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit) in January to 23 to 32 degrees Celsius ('73 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit) in July or August.
2) Religions
Although officially an atheist state, it is formulated in the law that people are free to hold their religions, and the most important religious beliefs include Taoism which accounts for 2%, Buddhism for 6% with around 2% of the population Muslim and 1% Christian.
3) Languages
The official and national language is Putonghua or Mandarin which is based on the northern dialect. Other principal dialects include Cantonese or Yue, Shanghainese or Wu, Fuzhou, Hokkien and Hakka as well as minority languages such as Tibetan and Mongolian.
4) Main Primary Products
Aluminum, antimony, asbestos, bauxite, coal, copper, cotton, fish, iron ore, jute and hemp, lead, livestock, manganese, mercury, oil and natural gas, phosphate rock, salt, soy-a beans, sugar beets, sulfur, tea, timber, tin ore, tobacco, uranium, wheat, zinc.
5) Major Industries
Agriculture, cement, fertilizers, iron and steel, light industry , machinery, mining, ornaments, petroleum refining, products, textiles, vehicles.
6) Main Exports
Chemicals, clothing, crude oil, coal, foodstuffs, machinery, minerals, petroleum products, textiles yarns and fabrics.
  
Location and Geography
The People's Republic of China is the full official name. The capital of China is Beijing. It has a land area about 9. 6 million square kilometers and it is one of the largest countries in land size in the whole world. China is located in East Asia, on the western shores of the Pacific Ocean. It has a continental land boundary of more than 20,000 kilometers and adjoins Korea in the east, the People's Republic of Mongolia in the north, Russia and Kazakhstan in the northeast and northwest, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan in the west and southwest and Burma, Laos and Vietnam in the south. The continental coastline is more than 18,000 kilometers long, and looks across the seas towards Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Over 66% of China is upland hill, mountains and plateaus while the highest mountains and plateaus are found to the west. To the north and east of the Tibetan Plateau the land decreases to the desert or semi desert areas of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. To the northeast the broad fertile Northeastern Plains are separated from North Korea by the densely forested of Changbai Mountain. East of the Tibetan Plateau is the Sichuan Basin which is drained by the Yangtze River that flows east across the southern plains to the East China Sea, The southern plains along the east coast of China have rich, fertile soils and are protected from the north wind. Both Hong Kong and Macao are enclosed on the southeast coast.
China is a country with many mountain ranges and highlands, which form the basic features of China's topography. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the highest and largest plateau which is commonly known as "the roof of the world". Peak Everest in the Himalayas Mountains is located on the border between China and Nepal, being the world's highest peak, having an elevation of 8, 848. 13 meters.
The main administrative division in China today is the four municipalities directly under the central government, the twenty-three provinces and the five autonomous regions. Hong Kong and Macao are the two special administrative zones
The four municipalities directly under the central government are Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing. The twenty-three provinces are Hebei and Shanxi in the North; Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang in the Northeast; Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai in the Northwest; Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi in the East; Fujian and Taiwan in the Southeast; Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan in the Southwest; Henan, Hubei and Hunan in the central South and Guangdong, Hainan in the South. The five autonomous regions are the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (north); the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (north); the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (northwest); the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (south) and the Tibet Autonomous Region (southwest).
The longest river in China, and the third longest river in the world, is the 6,300-kilometer-long Changjiang, more commonly known in the West as the Yangtze River. The Changjiang River rises in the Tanggula Mountains of Qinghai Province.
The Changjiang River is China's lifeline. Its estuary is north of Shanghai, where it is 13-km wide when it flows into the Yellow Sea. The river flows through nine provinces, with its 700 tributaries, covers an area of 1. 8 million km2 which is 19 percent of the total area of China. The river flows through most of the important industrialized area in China. It also forms a delta where the density of the population is the highest in the south. This shows how important a role this river has played.
Next is the Yellow River, or Huanghe River, which is the second longest river in China. Tracing to a source in the nation's far west, it loops north, bends south, and flows east for 5,464 km until it empties into the sea, draining a basin of 745, 000 km2, which nourishes 120 million people. Millennia ago the Chinese civilization emerged from the central region of this basin.
As the most heavily silt-laden river in the world, the Yellow River got its name from the muddiness of its water, which bears perennial ochre-yellow color.
The most challenging engineering aspect of taming the Yellow River is without doubt the control of the exceptionally high sediment load that the river carries in its lower reaches, averaging 37 kg of sediment per cubic meter of water at the present time. An average of 1. 6 billion tons of sediment enters the river channel at Zhengzhou annually, of which about 1. 2 billion tons is carried out to sea, leaving behind a substantial amount to contribute to the silting of the river channel.
Throughout history much of the river management effort was devoted to improving the flood prevention capability.
Other long rivers in China include Heilongjiang with a length of 2, 965 km; Zhujiang with a length of 2, 129 km; Songhuajiang with a length of 1,840 km.
Lakes of all sizes are scattered throughout China. The largest fresh water lakes are the Poyang in Jiangxi, the Dongting in Hunan, the Hongze in western Jiangsu and the Taihu in southern Jiangsu. The most important of the salt lakes are the Qinghai Lake in Qinghai and the Lop Nur in Xinjiang; the latter covers an area of more than 2,500 km2 but is not fixed either in area or shape. Lake Xingkai is a fresh water lake straddling the Sino-Soviet border.
Except the natural rivers and lakes, there are also many canals in China. The most famous is the Grand Canal between Beijing and Hangzhou, 1,782 kilometers in length, which passes through the city of Tianjin and four provinces (Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang) and links up with five major rivers; the Haihe, Huanghe, Huaihe, Changjiang and Qiantangjiang.
The continent of China faces east and south towards the seas. In the east, the most well-known sea is Bohai: the Liaodong peninsula and the Shandong peninsula confront each other to form a natural gateway known as the Bohai straits. Southeast of Bohai is the Huanghai (Yellow Sea), south of the mouth of the Changjiang is Donghai (East China Sea) , and south of the Taiwan Straits is Nanhai (South China Sea). Over 5,000 islands are scattered across the seas, with half of them located in Donghai, forming a total area of about 80, 000 square kilometers. The largest island in China is Taiwan, about 35,700 square km. The next is Hainan Island (over 34,000 square km). And Chongming Island (1,083 square km) is the third largest. The most southerly islands are the coral reefs known as the Dongsha, Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha archipelagos.
Many seaports are built along China's long and winding coastline. The river estuary ports of Tianjin, Shanghai, Guanzhou and Qingdao are important centers for foreign trade and economic exchange within China.
China lies in two of the world's major zoogeographic regions, the Pale arctic and the Oriental. The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia Autonomous regions, northeastern China, and all areas north of the Huanghe are in the Pale arctic region. Central, southern, and southwest China lie in the Oriental region. In the Pale arctic 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 Changjiang.
   Nationality
The formation and development of the Han people was a continuous process of integration of the earliest Huaxia tribe with other related tribes and ethnic groups. It was in the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) that they adopted the name "Han"; their language belongs to the Han group of the Chinese-Tibetan language family.
A people first active along the Yellow River, the Hans later expanded and gradually moved to fill the country; the highest population concentrations are now in the Yellow River, the Yangtze and the Zhujiang River basins and on the Songhuajiang-Liaohe Plain in Northeast China. In the long course of history they have developed various political, economic and cultural contacts with other nationalities to become more advanced; Hans now play an important role in the life of the state.
The population of the other 55 ethnic minority groups occupies 8. 40 percent of China's population. But there is a great difference in the size of these minority nationalities. The ethnic minority groups with over a million people include: Zhuang, Hui, Uygur, Yi, Miao, Manchu, Tibetan, Mongolian, Tujia, Buyi, Korean, Dong, Yao, Bai and Hani, 15 in all. The largest of these is the Zhuang, with a total of 15,490,000 people.
Population
China is a unitary multi-ethnic state, comprising the Han people and fifty-five ethnic minorities. The Han people are the most numerous and live all over the country with their highest concentrations in the Huanghe, Changjiang and Zhujiang river basins and on the Songhuajiang-Liaohe Plain in the north-east, occupying forty to fifty percent of the total area of China.
The official figures for 2007 show that China's population, excluding Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, has totaled 1. 326 billion, an increase of 132 million over the 1990 total. While that increase exceeds the entire population of Japan (127 million in 2000), the result met the government's official goal of staying below 1. 4 billion for 2010. A number of more specific figures are as follows:
The huge population has to be fed with the produce of around 15% to 20% of the land they live on - the sum total of China's arable land. The rest is barren wasteland or can only be lightly grazed.
Much of the productive land is also vulnerable to flood and drought caused by the vagaries of China's summer monsoons or unruly rivers.