Sinophilia - Guides

Geography
The People's Republic of China is the third-largest country in the world, extending for 9.6 million km².
Its borders run for 20,000 kms, touching Korea, Mongolia, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.
The Chinese territory includes Inner Mongolia since 1947 and Tibet since 1950. Hong Kong was returned by the UK in 1997 and the Portuguese left Macau in 1999. The island of Taiwan (Republic of China), independent since 1949, is the last missing piece.
China's longest river (third-longest in the world) is the Yangzi (6,380 km), while the Huanghe (Yellow River) flows for 5,464 kms.
Being 5,500 km large, China experiences great diversity in climate, from freezing Tibet (ranging from 4,000 to 7,000 m above sea level) to the hot and humid South-Eastern coast.

Population
Chinese population is the largest in the world, reaching approximately 1.2 billion people.
Han Chinese make up for around 93% of the total population, while the remaining 7% includes 55 ethnical minorities. Among these "minorities" we find Tibetans (around 4 million people), Mongolians (5 million), Uighurs (7 million), and the Zhuang (12 million).
With 14 million people, Shanghai is the most populated Chinese metropolis. Beijing reaches 11 million and Guangzhou stops at 4 million people.

Government
The PRC was founded on October 1st, 1949, with capital Beijing. In spite of the existence of a few democratic parties, the Chinese Communist Party actually enforces a single-party rule. The Standing Committee of the CCP Politburo, the State Council and the National People's Congress are the highest authorities in China.
From the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the return of Deng Xiaoping on the political scene, economical reform and modernization has been the main goal of the Government. Social reforms develop to a much slower pace and the introduction of democratic principles and human rights has been continuosly rejected.

Economy
Formerly based on a Communist economical policy, since the death of Mao China introduced the concept of "market Socialism" which includes both the wildest freedom of enterprise and remains of centralism.
Still based on agriculture, Chinese economy is slowly switching to light industry. Its enormous amount of low cost workforce easily attracted a large number of Western companies and corporations and "made in China" products have been conquering global markets since the 1980s.
Bound to be the strongest economical power and the widest market of the 21st century, China is struggling for technological modernization and increased productivity by means of foreign investment and the reform of state-owned enterprises.