Interesting Facts About China's Economy,History,Culture and Geography

China is a tremendously gifted country in terms of its rich cultural heritages, which holds many secrets of the past that still intrigued our minds. But by looking at her current meteoric rise as an economic super power, we can easily guess that the facts about china may not be covered in a short article as this. To my best knowledge I have tried to cover most of the important and interesting facts of china that will appeal to every reader. The list of facts has been divided into the following broad categories.

• Political
• Economic
• Historical
• Geographic
• Cultural
• Religious
• Interesting facts
• Future facts

Political Facts of China

• Official name: People’s Republic of China
• Chinese Congress elects both the president and the vice president for the country for five years.
• Chinese central Government controls 33 administrative units, consisting of 22 provinces.
• They have five autonomous regions.
• Hong Kong and Macau are the two special administrative regions of China.
• Before 1949 Taiwan was under the administrative control of China.
• Beijing, also known as Peking, is the political capital of China.
• The leading industrial city is Shanghai.
• Hong Kong is China’s strongest commercial center.
• Dragon is the national symbol of China

Geographic Facts of China

• China is the largest Asian country
• Total area of China is 9,572,900 square km, occupying almost one fourth of the land of our planet.
• In terms of total area entire Europe is equivalent to China.
• Total water body of China is 27,060 sq km
• China has border with 14 countries: Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.

Cultural Facts of China

• 91.5% of the Chinese belong to Han Ethnic group. The other ethnic groups are Hui, Miao, Uighur, Tineta, Dong etc.
• Almost 70% of the total Chinese population specks in Mandarin Chinese, which is also known as Putonghua
• Total population is 1,343 million
• 73.6% Chinese fall under that age range of 15 to 64.
• Population growth rate is 0.48% -this is an estimate for 2012
• Average life expectancy at birth is 74.84
• 1.4 physicians per 1000 of the population.
• 2.9% of the total population is obese.
• Literacy rate 92.2% (this rate means the percentage of the population who can both read and write)

Religious Facts

The majority of the population is officially atheist, though there is significant number of Taoist followers among the Chinese. Apart from this, there are about 4% Christians and 2% Muslims.

Economic Facts of China

• Total GDP size of Chine is $11.29 trillion (2011), which is almost 4 trillion dollars less than that of USA.
• In 2011 china’s GDP growth rate was 9.1 percent.
• Over 15% of the total population lives below poverty level
• Total public debt (2010) 64.9 percent of the GDP.
• The astounding Chinese labor forces exceeded 816.2 million in 2010
• In 2011, china consumed 4.693 trillion kWh of electricity.
• In 2011, Daily oil consumption was 9.4 million barrel
• The largest export partner of China is US.
• As of 31^st December 2011, Chinese foreign exchange reserve was $3.236 trillion.
• Estimated export in 2011 was $1.898 trillion.
• Japan is the biggest import partner of China-approximately 14 of the total imports is from Japan.
• I US dollars is equivalent to 6.4 Chinese Yuan.

Some Funny Facts about China

• Chinese years are represented by twelve animals; each month by one distinct animal.
• They believe that the animal which represents a month when you were born predicts your characteristics in real life.
• If your main entrance is faced to the south, then it should bring good luck to you-that is the fact many china people believe in.
• Red is the luckiest color in China.
• There are 40,000 characters in Chinese language, which are basically logograms.
• Chinese learn each of the character of their language by recognizing and memorizing its shape. You can never pronounce a Chinese word letter by letter, unlike English languages.

A brief Chinese Dynastic Historic Facts and Timelines

• The Shang dynasty is thought to have the first dynasty in China, who ruled from 16^thcentury to 11^th century B.C. the notable contributions of this dynasty were the development of art( very primitive in nature, basically the development of the shapes of animals), chariots and royal funerals.

• Chou and Ch'in dynasty: They ruled china from 1111 BC to 255B.C. the archeological evidence confirms that this dynasty contributed to the development of walled city and building the nation, which helped the entire china to become united. Another remarkable act of them was the feudal systems, which means a part of the administrative authority’s presence in a fortified location near the enemy states.

• After unifying china in 221 BD, Shih huang-ti claimed to be the first sovereign emperor of China. His dynasty lasted until his death. Soon after this death, his brother took control of his dynasty and forces his heir to commit suicide.

• Han Dynasty was found by Liu Pang in 202 B.C. Hans were the first long-lasting (400 years) dynasty in the history of Chine.

Future Facts of China

• By 2012, china will have 10 New York like Mega cities.
• China’s GDP is expected to become the largest in the world by 2020.
• On an average, each day there are 274 protests in China.
• The total number of people executed in china is three times more than that executed by the rest of the countries of the world put together. They use mobile van for
• More christens live in China than Italy.
• The volume of steel consumption in China is higher than Japan, US and the entire Europe combined.
• China is expected to have more urban population than the entire US population by 2030.

Striking facts about China

• The majority of the stocks in the shanghai stock exchange are from state owned companies.
• There are no significant political opposition parties in China.
• The name “China” has derived from the name of a Chinese dynasty called Ch’in.
• Toilet papers were invented in China in 1300s for the sole purpose of use of their emperor.
• China is credited for the invention of papers, kites, gun power, and printing machines.
• China hosted the most expensive Olympic Games in the history in 2008, costing an astounding 40 Billion dollars.
• Most of the Chinese people love collecting stamps.
• In the second B.C the Chinese discovered that our heart is responsible for pumping blood to circulate it throughout our body.
• In 3000 B.C. Silk was discovered in China.

if you are aware of other interesting facts about China, you are most welcome to share your information in the comment box.