China, country of East Asia. It is the largest of all Asian countries.

Occupying nearly the

entire East Asian landmass, it covers approximately one-fourteenth of the land area
of Earth, and it is almost as large as the whole of Europe. China is also one of the most
populous countries in the world, rivaled only by India, which, according to United
Nations estimates, surpassed it in population in 2023.

Shanghai: financial district

Water's edge view of the Shanghai financial district and Huangpu River, China.(more)

Shanghai: Huangpu district

Huangpu district in Shanghai at night.
China has 33 administrative units directly under the central government; these consist
of 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities (Chongqing, Beijing, Shanghai,
and Tianjin), and 2 special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The island
province of Taiwan, which has been under separate administration since 1949, is
discussed in the article Taiwan. Beijing (Peking), the capital of the People’s Republic, is
also the cultural, economic, and communications center of the country. Shanghai is the
main industrial city; Hong Kong is the leading commercial center and port.

Within China’s boundaries exists a highly diverse and complex country.

Its topography encompasses the highest and one of the lowest places on Earth, and its
relief varies from nearly impenetrable mountainous terrain to vast coastal lowlands.
Its climate ranges from extremely dry, desertlike conditions in the northwest to
tropical monsoon in the southeast, and China has the greatest contrast in temperature
between its northern and southern borders of any country in the world.
The diversity of both China’s relief and its climate has resulted in one of the world’s
widest arrays of ecological niches, and these niches have been filled by a vast number of
plant and animal species. Indeed, practically all types of Northern Hemisphere plants,
except those of the polar tundra, are found in China, and, despite the continuous
inroads of humans over the millennia, China still is home to some of the world’s most
exotic animals.

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Probably the single most identifiable characteristic of China to the people of the rest of
the world is the size of its population. Some one-fifth of humanity is of Chinese
nationality. The great majority of the population is Chinese (Han), and thus China is
often characterized as an ethnically homogeneous country, but few countries have as
many diverse Indigenous peoples as does China. Even among the Han there are cultural
and linguistic differences between regions; for example, the only point of linguistic
commonality between two individuals from different parts of China may be the written
Chinese language. Because China’s population is so enormous, the population density of
the country is also often thought to be uniformly high, but vast areas of China are either
uninhabited or sparsely populated.
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Overview of the Great Wall of China.
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With more than 4,000 years of recorded history, China is one of the few existing
countries that also flourished economically and culturally in the earliest stages of world
civilization. Indeed, despite the political and social upheavals that frequently have
ravaged the country, China is unique among nations in its longevity and resilience as a
discrete politico-cultural unit. Much of China’s cultural development has been
accomplished with relatively little outside influence, the introduction
of Buddhism from India constituting a major exception. Even when the country was
penetrated by such foreign powers as the Manchu, these groups soon became largely
absorbed into the fabric of Han Chinese culture.

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This relative isolation from the outside world made possible over the centuries the
flowering and refinement of the Chinese culture, but it also left China ill prepared to
cope with that world when, from the mid-19th century, it was confronted by
technologically superior foreign nations. There followed a century of decline and
decrepitude, as China found itself relatively helpless in the face of a foreign onslaught.
The trauma of this external challenge became the catalyst for a revolution that began in
the early 20th century against the old regime and culminated in the establishment of a
communist government in 1949. This event reshaped global political geography, and
China has since come to rank among the most influential countries in the world.

Central to China’s long-enduring identity as a unitary country is the province,

or sheng (“secretariat”). The provinces are traceable in their current form to the Tang
dynasty (618–907 CE). Over the centuries, provinces gained in importance as centers of
political and economic authority and increasingly became the focus of regional
identification and loyalty. Provincial power reached its peak in the first two decades of
the 20th century, but, since the establishment of the People’s Republic, that power has
been curtailed by a strong central leadership in Beijing. Nonetheless, while the Chinese
state has remained unitary in form, the vast size and population of China’s provinces—
which are comparable to large and midsize nations—dictate their continuing importance
as a level of subnational administration.
Land
China stretches for about 3,250 miles (5,250 km) from east to west and 3,400 miles
(5,500 km) from north to south. Its land frontier is about 12,400 miles (20,000 km) in
length, and its coastline extends for some 8,700 miles (14,000 km). The country is
bounded by Mongolia to the north; Russia and North Korea to the northeast; the Yellow
Sea and the East China Sea to the east; the South China Sea to the
southeast; Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), India, Bhutan, and Nepal to the
south; Pakistan to the southwest; and Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan,
and Kazakhstan to the west. In addition to the 14 countries that border directly on it,
China also faces South Korea and Japan, across the Yellow Sea, and the Philippines,
which lie beyond the South China Sea.

Relief of China

Xinjiang, China: Kyrgyz mosque in the Pamirs

Kyrgyz mosque in the Pamirs, western Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China.(more)
Broadly speaking, the relief of China is high in the west and low in the east;
consequently, the direction of flow of the major rivers is generally eastward. The surface
may be divided into three steps, or levels. The first level is represented by the Plateau of
Tibet, which is located in both the Tibet Autonomous Region and the province
of Qinghai and which, with an average elevation of well over 13,000 feet (4,000 meters)
above sea level, is the loftiest highland area in the world. The western part of this region,
the Qiangtang, has an average height of 16,500 feet (5,000 meters) and is known as the
“roof of the world.”

The second step lies to the north of the Kunlun and Qilian mountains and (farther
south) to the east of the Qionglai and Daliang ranges. There the mountains descend
sharply to heights of between 6,000 and 3,000 feet (1,800 and 900 meters), after which
basins intermingle with plateaus. This step includes the Mongolian Plateau,
the Tarim Basin, the Loess Plateau (loess is a yellow-gray dust deposited by the wind),
the Sichuan Basin, and the Yunnan-Guizhou (Yungui) Plateau.

The third step extends from the east of the Dalou, Taihang, and Wu mountain ranges
and from the eastern perimeter of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau to the China Sea.
Almost all of this area is made up of hills and plains lying below 1,500 feet (450 meters).

The most remarkable feature of China’s relief is the vast extent of its mountain chains;
the mountains, indeed, have exerted a tremendous influence on the country’s political,
economic, and cultural development. By rough estimate, about one-third of the total
area of China consists of mountains. China has the world’s tallest mountain and the
world’s highest and largest plateau, in addition to possessing extensive coastal plains.
The five major landforms—mountain, plateau, hill, plain, and basin—are all well
represented. China’s complex natural environment and rich natural resources are
closely connected with the varied nature of its relief.

Mount Everest massif

The Mount Everest massif, Himalayas, Nepal.
The topography of China is marked by many splendors. Mount Everest (Qomolangma
Feng), situated on the border between China and Nepal, is the highest peak in the world,
at an elevation of 29,035 feet (8,850 meters; see Researcher’s Note: Height of Mount
Everest). By contrast, the lowest part of the Turfan Depression in the
Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang—Lake Ayding—is 508 feet (155 meters)
below sea level. The coast of China contrasts greatly between South and North. To the
south of the bay of Hangzhou, the coast is rocky and indented with many harbors and
offshore islands. To the north, except along the Shandong and Liaodong peninsulas, the
coast is sandy and flat.

China is prone to intense seismic activity throughout much of the country. The main
source of this geologic instability is the result of the constant northward movement of
the Indian tectonic plate beneath southern Asia, which has thrust up the towering
mountains and high plateaus of the Chinese southwest. Throughout its history China
has experienced hundreds of massive earthquakes that collectively have killed millions
of people. Two in the 20th century alone—in eastern Gansu province (1920) and in the
city of Tangshan, eastern Hebei province (1976)—caused some 250,000 deaths each,
and a quake in east-central Sichuan province in 2008 killed tens of thousands and
devastated a wide area.

China’s physical relief has dictated its development in many respects. The civilization of
Han Chinese originated in the southern part of the Loess Plateau, and from there it
extended outward until it encountered the combined barriers of relief and climate. The
long, protruding corridor, commonly known as the Gansu, or Hexi, Corridor, illustrates
this fact. South of the corridor is the Plateau of Tibet, which was too high and too cold
for the Chinese to gain a foothold. North of the corridor is the Gobi Desert, which also
formed a barrier. Consequently, Chinese civilization was forced to spread along the
corridor, where melting snow and ice in the Qilian Mountains provided water for oasis
farming. The westward extremities of the corridor became the meeting place of the
ancient East and West.

Thus, for a long time the ancient political center of China was located along the lower
reaches of the Huang He (Yellow River). Because of topographical barriers, however, it
was difficult for the central government to gain complete control over the entire country,
except when an unusually strong dynasty was in power. In many instances the Sichuan
Basin—an isolated region in southwestern China, about twice the size of Scotland, that is
well protected by high mountains and is self-sufficient in agricultural products—became
an independent kingdom. A comparable situation often arose in the Tarim Basin in the
northwest. Linked to the rest of China only by the Gansu Corridor, this basin is even
remoter than the Sichuan, and, when the central government was unable to exert its
influence, oasis states were established; only the three strong dynasties—
the Han (206 BCE–220 CE), the Tang (618–907CE), and the Qing, or Manchu (1644–
1911/12)—were capable of controlling the region.

Apart from the three elevation zones already mentioned, it is possible—on the basis of
geologic structure, climatic conditions, and differences in geomorphologic development
—to divide China into three major topographic regions: the eastern, northwestern, and
southwestern zones. The eastern zone is shaped by the rivers, which have eroded
landforms in some parts and have deposited alluvial plains in others; its climate is
monsoonal (characterized by seasonal rain-bearing winds). The northwestern region is
arid and eroded by the wind; it forms an inland drainage basin. The southwest is a
cold, lofty, and mountainous region containing intermontane plateaus and inland lakes.
The three basic regions may be further subdivided into second-order geographic
divisions. The eastern region contains 10 of these, the southwest contains two, and the
northwest contains three. Below is a brief description of each division.

The eastern region

The Northeast Plain

Da Hinggan (Greater Khingan) Range

Da Hinggan (Greater Khingan) Range, southeast of Hailar, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China.(more)
The Northeast Plain (also known as the Manchurian Plain and the Sung-liao Plain) is
located in China’s Northeast, the region formerly known as Manchuria. It is bordered to
the west and north by the Da Hinggan (Greater Khingan) Range and to the east by
the Xiao Hinggan (Lesser Khingan) Range. An undulating plain split into northern and
southern halves by a low divide rising from 500 to 850 feet (150 to 260 meters), it is
drained in its northern part by the Sungari River and tributaries and in its southern part
by the Liao River. Most of the area has an erosional rather than a depositional surface,
but it is covered with a deep soil. The plain has an area of about 135,000 square miles
(350,000 square km). Its basic landscapes are forest-steppe, steppe, meadow-steppe,
and cultivated land; its soils are rich and black, and it is a famous agricultural region.
The river valleys are wide and flat with a series of terraces formed by deposits of silt.
During the flood season the rivers inundate extensive areas.
The Changbai Mountains
To the southeast of the Northeast Plain is a series of ranges comprising the
Changbai, Zhangguangcai, and Wanda mountains, which in Chinese are collectively
known as the Changbai Shan, or “Forever White Mountains”; broken by occasional open
valleys, they reach elevations mostly between 1,500 and 3,000 feet (450 and 900
meters). In some parts the scenery is characterized by rugged peaks and precipitous
cliffs. The highest peak is the volcanic cone of Mount Baitou (9,003 feet [2,744 meters]),
which has a beautiful crater lake at its snow-covered summit. As one of the major forest
areas of China, the region is the source of many valuable furs and famous medicinal
herbs. Cultivation is generally limited to the valley floors.
The North China Plain
Comparable in size to the Northeast Plain, most of the North China Plain lies at
elevations below 160 feet (50 meters), and the relief is monotonously flat. It was formed
by enormous sedimentary deposits brought down by the Huang He and Huai River from
the Loess Plateau; the Quaternary deposits alone (i.e., those from the past 2.6 million
years) reach thicknesses of 2,500 to 3,000 feet (760 to 900 meters). The river channels,
which are higher than the surrounding locality, form local water divides, and the areas
between the channels are depressions in which lakes and swamps are found. In
particularly low and flat areas, the underground water table often fluctuates from 5 to
6.5 feet (1.5 to 2 meters), forming meadow swamps and, in some places, resulting in
saline soils. A densely populated area that has long been under settlement, the North
China Plain has the highest proportion of land under cultivation of any region in China.
The Loess Plateau

Yan River in the Loess Plateau

The Yan River at Yan'an, Shaanxi province, China, in the eastern portion of the Loess Plateau.(more)
This vast plateau of some 154,000 square miles (400,000 square km) forms a unique
region of loess-clad hills and barren mountains between the North China Plain and the
deserts of the west. In the north the Great Wall of China forms the boundary, while the
southern limit is the Qin Mountains in Shaanxi province. The average surface elevation
is roughly 4,000 feet (1,200 meters), but individual ranges of bedrock are higher,
reaching 9,825 feet (2,995 meters) in the Liupan Mountains. Most of the plateau is
covered with loess to thicknesses of 165 to 260 feet (50 to 80 meters). In
northern Shaanxi and eastern Gansu provinces, the loess may reach much greater
thicknesses. The loess is particularly susceptible to erosion by water, and ravines and
gorges crisscross the plateau. It has been estimated that ravines cover approximately
half the entire region, with erosion reaching depths of 300 to 650 feet (90 to 200
meters).
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