Made in China

China which is commonly known as The People’s Republic of China, is the most famous, stable and populous state in the world with more than 1.3 billion people. It is situated in East Asia. The government of China is based on Communist Party of China (CPC) under a single-party system. China contains more than 22 provinces including five regions, four directly administered municipalities (Shanghai , Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing) and two special administrative regions (SARs) which are Hong Kong and Macau. Beijing is the capital of the country.

China covers the area of about 9.6 million km square (equals to 3.7 million square miles). On the basis of it, China is the world’s largest country by total area. Its landscape is diverse, with forest area and deserts (the Gobi and Taklamakan districts) in the dry area of north which are near Mongolia and Russia’s Siberia. Also, subtropical forests situated in the wet south which is close to Vietnam, Laos and Burma. The different in the west is roughness and high altitude that include the Himalayas and the Tian Shan mountain ranges forming China with India and Central Asia. In contrast eastern seaboard of China is low-lying and has a 14,500 km long coastline bounded on the southeast by the South China Sea and on the east by the East China Sea beyond which lies Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.

Geography:
China is the largest country in the world according to the total land area. China borders 14 nations which are more than any other country. Clockwise count of countries bordered with China are, from south, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Russia, North Korea, Vietnam, Bhutan, Laos, Burma, Nepal, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. China’s land border of 22,117 km is also the largest in the world.

The land of China contains a large variety of landscapes. In the east, there are broad and deeply populated fertile plains along the bank of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, while in the north, grasslands can be sighted on the edges of the Inner Mongolian plateau. Southern China is commonly known by its hills and low mountain ranges. The deltas of China’s two major rivers the Yellow River and the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) are in the central-east. Some more major rivers are the Xi, Mekong, Amur and Brahmaputra. To the west side, there are broad ranges of major mountains, mainly the Himalayas that contains China’s highest point of Mount Everest at the eastern half at 8,848 m and high plateaus can bee seen among the more barren and dry landscapes such as the Gobi Desert and the Taklamakan.

National Flag of China:
The national flag of China contains bright red base with five golden stars embellishing it on the upper left side corner. The present Chinese flag was first elevated on 1st October, 1949 in the Tiananmen Square on the occasion of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China. One of the five golden stars on the flag is bigger in size and it indicates communism. The presence of five stars initiates the significance of number five in the culture and heritage of China. The bright red color of the national flag characterizes the communist uprising which had led to the establishment of People’s Republic of China.

National Flower of China:
China has no any official national flower but the “Tree Peony” is considered as a national flower of China. In a survey conducted by Chinese government in 1994, majority of people from every district of China selected Tree Peony as a national flower. The elegance and fragrance of the Tree Peony has been favorite in Chinese culture throughout the history.

Giant Panda – A Treasure of China:
Giant Panda is the most precious animal in the world. They live in  mountainous regions of Sichuan, Shanxi and Gansu provinces of China. This animal is considered as a national treasure of China. Giant Panda has black eyes sockets, black ears, black arms and legs and the remaining body is white. The average life expectancy of Giant Pandas is 15 years. Normally, they eat 50 species of bamboo which grow in alpine and subalpine regions and they mostly like the most nutritious parts of these bamboos. Sometimes, they eat corpses of other animals too. A Giant Panda eats 12 – 38 kg of food in a day.

Climate:
The climate of China mainly consists of dry seasons and wet monsoons which become the causes of temperature differences in winter and summer. In winter time, northern winds from high latitude areas are coming that are dry and cold, while in summertime, southern winds coming from sea areas at lower latitude which are moist and warm. The climate of China varies from region to region due to the country’s extensive and complex topography.

Population:
China is the largest and most populous country of the world with over 1.3 billion people (1,352,381,580 according to the mid of 2010). China covers 20% of the world’s total population. In the world, one person in every five people is a Chinese resident. The expectation is that by 2050, China will have more than 100 million over 80. If things don’t change that means that just 1.6 working age adults will support every person aged 60 and above, compared to 7.7 in 1975.

Language (Chinese):
Chinese is the official language of the People’s Republic of China. It is the language which is also spoken by most people of the world. There are a few numbers of languages in China that are related to the official language. We can say them dialects. These dialects are more ancient than the modern official Chinese language and have more tone pitches and closed syllable endings. The most important languages are:

• Cantonese Guangdonghua or Yueyu which is spoken in Guangdong province.
• Wu which is spoken in the Yangtse Delta and Shanghai. Remember that Wu is the name of an old feudal state of the Spring and Autumn period.
• Northern Min Minbeihua which is spoken in northern Fujian province.
• Southern Min Minnanhua which is spoken in southern Fujian and Taiwan.
• Hakka which is spoken in many provinces of South China and oversees. The meaning of “Hakka” is “guest people”.
• Gan which is spoken in Jiangxi.
• Xiang which is spoken in Hunan.
• Recently some Chinese dialects were allocated into languages such as Dongan which is spoken by Chinese Muslims in the West of the country, Minzhong, Mindong, Puxian spoken in Fujian, Huizhou spoken in Anhui, Jin spoken in Shanxi and Zhejiang.

Education:
China started to setting up a long-term planing of providing compulsory nine-year basic education to every child in 1986. According to the facts and figures of 2007, there were 396,567 primary schools, 94,116 secondary schools and 2,236 higher education institutions in China.

In February 2006, the government of China modernized its basic education structure by providing nine-year education totally free of cost that contains textbooks and fees too. Therefore, now current education system of China has free as well as compulsory education for all the citizens which consists of elementary and middle school. This education lasts for 9 years (age between 6 and 15). Also, almost all children in urban area of the country continue their 3 years high school.

According to the facts and figures of 2007, 93.3% of the Chinese population are literate which is has above 15 years of age. Literacy rate of the youth of China (age from 15 to 24) was 98.9%. In March 2007, China announced  a policy of making education as a national “strategic priority” in which the central budget of the national scholarships will be tripled in two years and 223.5 billion Yuan (equals to US $28.65 billions) of extra funding are alloted from the central government in the next 5 years to improve the compulsory education in rural areas of the country.

Import and Export:
Products made in China worth millions of dollars to all over the world. The economy of China is mainly based on its agricultural ability, but also export of several home industries of different sizes on a large scale contributes heavily to its economy.

China has established very strong trade relations not only with different countries in Asia but also all the other parts of the world. Its products worth millions of dollars globally. US, the most developed and progressive country in the world is one of the leading importers of different kinds of Chinese products. Due to excellent qualities of exporting goods, there has always been a huge demand for Chinese products around the globe. In fact the rate of China’s export to America is one of the highest in the world.

Major industrial products of China are its main exports also. These products contain garments, electronics, textiles and arms which are the top exports of mainland China. China also produces minerals of high quality which are also count in its major exports like antimony, tin, tungsten, molybdenum, mercury, magnesium, barite, manganese and salt. China is ranks in the world’s four top producers of magnesium, tin, antimony, zinc and tungsten as well as ranks second (after the US) in the production of salt, sixth in the production of gold and is one of world’s largest producers of aluminum.

China also imports many high quality products from different countries like Japan, Canada, US, South Korea and Taiwan to fulfill its needs. At the present time, Japan is the largest importing country to China. Some of the top Chinese import products are semiconductors, civilian aircrafts, plastics, soybeans, corn, oil seeds, railways transportation equipments, industrial machines, raw cotton, etc.