China

China,Template:Efn officially the People's Republic of China (PRC),Template:Efn is a country in East Asia. It is the second-most populous country after India, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion (17% of the world's population), across an area of , making it the third-largest country by area.Template:Efn The country is divided into 33 province-level divisions: 22 provinces,Template:Efn 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities, and 2 special administrative regions. Beijing is the capital, while Shanghai is the most populous city by urban area.

The first humans in China arrived during the Paleolithic era. By the 2nd millennium BCE dynastic states had emerged in the Yellow River basin. The 8th–3rd centuries BCE saw a breakdown in the authority of the Zhou dynasty, accompanied by the emergence of administrative and military techniques, literature and philosophy. In 221 BCE, China was unified under an emperor, ushering in two millennia of imperial rule. Its achievements include widespread cultural influence, the invention of gunpowder, paper, printing and the compass, the establishment of the Silk Road, and the building of the Great Wall. In the 1800s, the Qing dynasty ceded parts of the country to foreign powers through a series of unequal treaties. The 1911 Revolution overthrew the empire and established the Republic of China. The country was unstable and fragmented during the Warlord Era until the Kuomintang reunified much of the country.

The Chinese Civil War began in 1927, when Kuomintang forces purged members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Empire of Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China in 1937, beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War and renewed CCP and Kuomintang cooperation. This ended in a Chinese victory in 1945, and the CCP and the Kuomintang resumed their civil war. In 1949, the CCP proclaimed the People's Republic of China and forced the Kuomintang retreat to Taiwan. Both sides of the split China claimed legitimacy. Following the implementation of land reforms, attempts by the CCP to advance communism faltered: the Great Leap Forward led to the Great Chinese Famine and millions of deaths, while the Cultural Revolution saw turmoil and persecution. The reform and opening up that began in 1978 moved the country away from a planned economy towards a market economy, spurring an economic boom. A movement for political liberalization stalled after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.

The PRC is a unitary communist state with the CCP as its sole ruling party. It is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and a member of many multilateral and regional organizations. Around one-fifth of the world's economy, China is the second-wealthiest country in the world, with the Chinese economy the largest when adjusted for purchasing power parity. China has been one of the fastest-growing modern economies and is the world's largest manufacturer and exporter, as well as the second-largest importer. International organizations rank China poorly in measures of democracy and human rights. China has the world's largest standing army, second-largest defense budget, and third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile. Since the 2020s, it has been described as a superpower due to its influence in geopolitics, science and technology, manufacturing, economics and culture. China is known for its cuisine and culture. It has over 60 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Etymology

The word "China" has been used in English since the 16th century; however, it was not used by the Chinese themselves during this period. Its origin has been traced through Portuguese, Malay, and Persian back to the Sanskrit word चिन , used in ancient India. "China" appears in an 1555 English translationTemplate:Efn of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa.Template:Efn Barbosa's usage was derived from Persian (), which in turn derived from Sanskrit (). The origin of the Sanskrit word is a matter of debate. was first used in early Hindu scripture from the 3rd century BCE to 4th century CE, including the Mahabharata and the Laws of Manu. In 1655, the missionary Martino Martini suggested that the word China is derived ultimately from the name of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) or the prior state of Qin. This remains a common etymology, although Indian sources precedes the dynasty. Another possible source is the ancient Guizhou polity of Yelang, known as in Loloish languages.

The official name of the modern state is the "People's Republic of China" (). The shorter form is "China" (), from ('central') and ('state'), a term first used for the demesne of the Western Zhou dynasty.Template:EfnTemplate:Efn It was used in official documents as a synonym for the state under the Qing. The name Template:Zh is also translated as 'Middle Kingdom' in English. China is sometimes referred to as mainland China or "the Mainland" when distinguishing it from the Republic of China on Taiwan or the PRC's Special Administrative Regions.

History

Prehistory

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Pottery vessel, Xianren Cave culture (18,000–7,000 BCE). Among the earliest known pottery in the world. National Museum of China, Beijing.

Archaeological evidence suggests early hominids inhabited China 2.25 million years ago. The fossils of Peking Man, a Homo erectus, have been dated to 680,000–780,000 years ago. The fossilized teeth of Homo sapiens (dated to 125,000–80,000 years ago) have been discovered in Fuyan Cave. Proto-writing has been found at various Chinese archaeological sites from the 7th to 5th millennia BCE. Some scholars have suggested that the 7th millennium Jiahu symbols constituted an early writing system.

Early dynastic rules

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Rectangular cauldron (fangding, 方鼎), Shang dynasty, ca. 13th–11th century BCE. Bronze. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

According to traditional Chinese historiography, the Xia dynasty was established during the late 3rd millennium BCE, beginning China's dynastic cycle. The Xia's historicity has come under increasing scrutiny in modern scholarship, in part due to its earliest mentions being written millennia later. In 1958, archaeologists discovered the Erlitou site, dating to the early Bronze Age. The Erlitou culture is controversially connected to the historical Xia. The Xia's traditional successor, the Shang dynasty, is the earliest dynasty with both contemporary written records and undisputed archaeological evidence. Firmly attested from c. 1300 BCE, the Shang ruled much of the Yellow River valley until the 11th century BCE. The oracle bone script, attested from c. 1250 BCE but generally assumed to be considerably older, represents the oldest known form of written Chinese, and is the ancestor of modern Chinese characters.

The Zhou overthrew the Shang, ruling between the 11th and 5th centuries BCE. Their centralized authority was slowly eroded by regional lords. Principalities emerged and continually waged wars during the 300-year Spring and Autumn period. By the Warring States period of the 5th–3rd centuries BCE, there were seven major states left.

Imperial China

Classical period

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The southward expansion of the Han dynasty during the 2nd century BCE

The Warring States ended in 221 BCE after Qin conquered the other states, reunited China under an autocracy, the Qin dynasty. King Qin Shi Huang proclaimed himself the first emperor of China. He conquered the Yue of Southern China and Northern Vietnam, and enacted Legalist reforms, standardizing Chinese characters, measurements, road widths, and currency. The dynasty lasted only fifteen years, falling soon after his death.

Following widespread revolts, the Han dynasty emerged to rule China between 206 BCE and 220 CE, sponsoring a cultural identity and the namesake of the modern Han Chinese. The Han expanded the empire's territory, with military campaigns reaching Central Asia, Mongolia, Korea, and Yunnan, and the recovery of Guangdong and northern Vietnam from Nanyue. Han involvement in Central Asia and Sogdia helped establish the land route of the Silk Road, replacing the earlier path over the Himalayas to India. Han China became the largest economy of the ancient world. Despite the Han's initial decentralization and the official abandonment of Legalism in favor of Confucianism, the Qin's institutions and policies continued to be employed by the Han government and its successors.

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Cave 20, Yungang Grottoes, Datong, Shanxi. Northern Wei dynasty, c. 460–465 CE.

After the end of the Han dynasty, a period of strife known as Three Kingdoms followed, after which Wei was overthrown by the Jin dynasty. The Jin fell to civil war, and the Five Barbarians then rebelled and ruled northern China as the Sixteen States. The Tuoba clan of the Xianbei unified them as the Northern Wei. In the south, the Jin were succeeded by various other dynasties. The various successors of these states became known as the Northern and Southern dynasties, with the two areas finally reunited by the Sui in 589.

Medieval period

The Sui restored the Han to power through China, reformed its agriculture, economy and imperial examination system, constructed the Grand Canal, and patronized Buddhism. However, labor conscription and a failed war in Korea provoked widespread unrest and the dynasty's fall. Under the succeeding Tang, Chinese economy, technology, and culture entered a golden age. The Tang dynasty retained control of the Western Regions and the Silk Road, which brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and the Horn of Africa, and made the capital Chang'an a cosmopolitan urban center. However, it was devastated and weakened by the An Lushan rebellion in the 8th century. The Tang produced what many scholars regard as the apogee of classical Chinese poetry, with works that remained canonical across the Sinosphere, while the cosmopolitan character of Chang'an reflected the Tang's international integration

In 907, the Tang disintegrated when the local military governors became ungovernable. The Song dynasty ended the separatist situation in 960, leading to a balance of power between the Song and the Liao dynasty. The Song was the first government in world history to issue paper money and the first Chinese polity to establish a permanent navy.

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Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk, originally painted by Zhang Xuan (713–755) during the Tang dynasty; this 12th-century Song dynasty copy is the earliest surviving version. Silk painting. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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Wang Ximeng, A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains (千里江山圖), detail. Northern Song dynasty, c. 1113. Handscroll, ink and mineral pigments on silk. Palace Museum, Beijing.

The Song dynasty saw the first systematic military application of gunpowder, including fire arrows and proto-firearms such as the fire lance, as well as the adoption of the magnetic compass for maritime navigation. Movable type printing, invented around 1040, dramatically accelerated the diffusion of knowledge across East Asia. The Song period has been characterized by some historians as an antecedent to the Industrial Revolution: iron production reached high levels, the rigid Tang-era ward system gave way to open commercial streets and night markets, and cities such as Bianjing (Kaifeng) and Lin'an (Hangzhou) each surpassed one million inhabitants. The maritime Silk Road expanded significantly, with the ports of Quanzhou and Guangzhou becoming among the busiest in the contemporary world, connecting China to Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf.

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Emperor Huizong of Song, Auspicious Cranes (瑞鶴圖), detail, 1112. Handscroll, ink and color on silk. Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang.

Between the 10th and 11th century CE, the population of China doubled to around 100 million people, mostly because of the expansion of rice cultivation in central and southern China, and the production of abundant food surpluses. The Song dynasty saw a flourishing of philosophy and the arts,. and the reinterpretation of classical thought through Neo-Confucianism in response to the growth of Buddhism during the Tang. In 1127, the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty overran the northern Song. The Song remnants retreated south and reestabslished the dynasty at Jiankang.

Late Imperial period

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The Great Wall of China, photographed by Thomas Child in the 1870s. Most extant sections of the Wall date to the Ming dynasty.

The Mongol conquest of China began in 1205 with the campaigns against Western Xia by Genghis Khan, who later invaded Jin territories. In 1271, the Mongol leader Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty, which conquered the last remnant of the Song dynasty in 1279. Before the Mongol invasion, the population of Song China was 120 million citizens; this was reduced to 60 million by the time of the census in 1300. A peasant leader overthrew the Yuan in 1368 and founded the Ming dynasty as the Hongwu Emperor. Under the Ming dynasty, China enjoyed another golden age, developing one of the strongest navies in the world and a rich and prosperous economy amid a flourishing of art and culture. It was during this period that admiral Zheng He led the Ming treasure voyages throughout the Indian Ocean, reaching as far as East Africa.

The Ming moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing. With the budding of capitalism, philosophers such as Wang Yangming critiqued and expanded Neo-Confucianism with concepts of individualism and equality of four occupations. The scholar-official stratum became a supporting force of industry and commerce in the tax boycott movements, which, together with famines and defense against Japanese invasions of Korea and the Manchu led to an exhausted treasury. In 1644, Beijing was captured by a coalition of peasant rebel forces. The Manchu-led Qing dynasty then seized control of Beijing, which became the new Qing capital.

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The Qing conquest of the Ming and expansion of the empire

The transition from Ming to Qing cost 25 million lives, but the Qing restored China's imperial power and inaugurated another flowering of the arts. After the Southern Ming fell in 1662, a series of further conquests added Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang to the empire. Meanwhile, China's population growth resumed and shortly began to accelerate. It is commonly agreed that pre-modern China's population experienced two growth spurts, one during the Northern Song period (960–1127), and other during the Qing period (around 1700–1830). By the High Qing era, China was possibly the most commercialized country in the world, experienced a commercial revolution by the end of the 18th century. On the other hand, the centralized autocracy was strengthened in part to suppress anti-Qing sentiment with the policy of valuing agriculture and restraining commerce, like the Template:Zh during the early Qing period and ideological control as represented by the literary inquisition, causing some social and technological stagnation.

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The Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China to defeat the anti-foreign Boxers and their Qing backers. The image shows a celebration ceremony inside the Chinese imperial palace, the Forbidden City after the signing of the Boxer Protocol in 1901.

In the mid-19th century, the Opium Wars with the Western powers forced China to pay compensation, open treaty ports, allow extraterritoriality for foreign nationals, and cede Hong Kong to the British Empire under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, the first of what have been termed the unequal treaties. The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) resulted in China's loss of influence in Korea and the cession of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan. The Qing dynasty also began experiencing internal unrest in which tens of millions of people died, especially in the White Lotus Rebellion, the failed Taiping Rebellion in southern China in the 1850s and 1860s and the Dungan Revolt in the northwest. The initial success of the Self-Strengthening Movement of the 1860s was frustrated by a series of military defeats in the 1880s and 1890s. In the 19th century, the great Chinese diaspora began. Losses due to emigration were added to by conflicts and catastrophes such as the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879, in which between 9 and 13 million people died. The Guangxu Emperor drafted a reform plan in 1898 to establish a modern constitutional monarchy, but these plans were thwarted by the Empress Dowager Cixi. The anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901 further weakened the dynasty. Although Cixi sponsored the late Qing reforms, the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 ended the Qing dynasty. Puyi, the last Emperor, abdicated in 1912.

Republic of China

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Calendar poster (yuefenpai, 月份牌), Republic of China, year 1 (1912).

On 1 January 1912, the Republic of China (ROC) was established, and Sun Yat-sen of the Kuomintang was proclaimed provisional president. In 1912, the presidency was given to Yuan Shikai, a former Qing general who in 1915 proclaimed himself Emperor. In the face of opposition from the population and his own Beiyang Army, he was forced to re-establish the republic in 1916. After Yuan's death in 1916, China was politically fragmented. Its Beijing-based government was internationally recognized but virtually powerless; regional warlords controlled most of its territory. During this period, China participated in World War I and saw a far-reaching popular uprising called the May Fourth Movement.

In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek reunified most the country through the Northern Expedition and moved the nation's capital to Nanjing. The Kuomintang formed the First United Front with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Northern Expedition, though the alliance broke down in 1927 after Chiang violently suppressed the CCP and other leftists in Shanghai, marking the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. CCP forces in Jiangxi were defeated by the Nationalist government in 1934, leading the CCP to initiate the Long March and relocate to Yan'an in Shaanxi.

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Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong toasting together in 1945 following the end of World War II

In 1931, Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria. Additionally, Japan invaded other parts of China in 1937, precipitating the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), a theater of World War II. The war led to the Second United Front between the Kuomintang and the CCP. Japanese forces committed numerous war atrocities against the civilian population; as many as 20 million Chinese civilians died. An estimated 40,000 to over 300,000 Chinese were massacred in Nanjing alone during the Japanese occupation. The Republic of China, along with the UK, the United States, and the Soviet Union, were recognized as the Allied "Big Four" in the Declaration by United Nations. Along with the other three great powers, China was one of the four major Allies of World War II, and was later considered one of the primary victors in the war.

After the surrender of Japan in 1945, China emerged victorious but war-ravaged and financially drained. Taiwan, along with the Penghu, were handed over to ROC control; however, the validity of this handover is controversial. In 1946, the country resumed a state of civil war between the CCP and the Kuomintang that lasted more than three years. Constitutional rule was established in 1947, but because of the ongoing war, many provisions of the ROC constitution were never implemented in mainland China.

People's Republic of China

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On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People's Republic of China

By 1949, the CCP took control of most of mainland China, and the ROC government retreated to Taiwan. On 1 October 1949, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong formally proclaimed the People's Republic of China. The following year, the PRC captured Hainan and commenced the annexation of Tibet. The CCP consolidated its popularity among the peasants through the Land Reform Movement, which included the state-tolerated executions of between 1 and 2 million landlords by peasants and former tenants. Though the PRC initially allied closely with the Soviet Union, the relations between the two communist nations gradually deteriorated. The Chinese population increased from 550 million in 1950 to 900 million in 1974. However, the Great Leap Forward, a massive industrialization project, resulted in the Great Chinese Famine between 1959 and 1961, causing an estimated 15 to 55 million deaths. In 1964, China detonated its first atomic bomb. In 1966, Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, sparking a decade of political recrimination and social upheaval that lasted until Mao's death in 1976.

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The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests were ended by a military-led massacre.

After Mao's death, the Gang of Four were arrested by Hua Guofeng. The Cultural Revolution was rebuked, with millions rehabilitated. Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978, and started the reform and opening up, instituting large-scale political and economic reforms to transition away from planned economy. In 1989, there were protests such those in Tiananmen Square, and then throughout the entire nation. Jiang Zemin was elevated to become the CCP general secretary, becoming the paramount leader. China's economy grew sevenfold during Jiang's tenure. British Hong Kong and Portuguese Macau returned to China in 1997 and 1999, respectively, as special administrative regions.

In 2002, Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang as the general secretary. Under Hu, China maintained its high rate of economic growth and became the world's second-largest economy. However, the growth also severely impacted the country's resources and environment, and caused major social displacement. Xi Jinping succeeded Hu as paramount leader in 2012. Shortly after his ascension to power, Xi launched a vast anti-corruption crackdown, that prosecuted more than 2 million officials by 2022. During his tenure, Xi has consolidated power unseen since the initiation of economic and political reforms.

Geography

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A topographic map of China

China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts in the arid north to the subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, respectively, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is Template:Cvt long, bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China connects through the Kazakh border to the Eurasian Steppe.

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Huangshan in Anhui

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Biluthu Yinderitu lake amid the dunes of the Badain Jaran Desert, Inner Mongolia.

China's landscapes vary significantly across its vast territory. In the east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, there are extensive and densely populated alluvial plains, while on the edges of the Inner Mongolian plateau in the north, broad grasslands predominate. Southern China is dominated by hills and low mountain ranges, while the central-east hosts the deltas of China's two major rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze. To the west sit major mountain ranges, notably the Himalayas. High plateaus feature among the more arid landscapes of the north, such as the Taklamakan and the Gobi Desert. The world's highest point, Mount Everest (8,848 miles), lies on the Sino-Nepalese border. The country's lowest point, and the world's third-lowest, is the dried lake bed of Ayding Lake (−154 miles) in the Turpan Depression. Despite spanning the equivalent of five geographical time zones (from UTC+5 to UTC+9), China uses a single national time zone, China Standard Time (UTC+8).

Climate

China's climate is mainly dominated by dry seasons and wet monsoons, which lead to pronounced temperature differences between winter and summer. In the winter, northern winds coming from high-latitude areas are cold and dry; in summer, southern winds from coastal areas at lower latitudes are warm and moist.

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Köppen-Geiger climate classification map for mainland China

The expansion of China's deserts, particularly the Gobi, has posed a persistent threat. Although barrier tree lines planted since the 1970s have reduced the frequency of sandstorms, prolonged drought and poor agricultural practices have resulted in dust storms plaguing northern China each spring, which spread across East Asia. Water quality, erosion, and pollution control have become important issues in China's foreign relations. Melting glaciers in the Himalayas could potentially lead to water shortages for hundreds of millions of people. In order to limit climate change in China to Template:Cvt, electricity generation from coal without carbon capture must be phased out by 2045.

Much of China has a climate very suitable for agriculture and the country has been the world's largest producer of rice, wheat, tomatoes, eggplant, grapes, watermelon, spinach, and many other crops. In 2021, 12% of global permanent meadows and pastures belonged to China, as well as 8% of global cropland.

Biodiversity

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A giant panda, one of China's most famous symbols, at the Chengdu Panda Base in Sichuan

China is one of 17 megadiverse countries, lying in two of the world's major biogeographic realms: the Palearctic and the Indomalayan. By one measure, China has over 34,687 species of animals and vascular plants, making it the third-most biodiverse country in the world, after Brazil and Colombia.

China is home to at least 551 species of mammals, 1,221 species of birds, 424 species of reptiles (seventh) and 333 species of amphibians. Wildlife in China is pressured by the large human population. At least 840 animal species are threatened, vulnerable or in danger of local extinction, due mainly to human activity such as habitat destruction, pollution and poaching. Endangered wildlife is legally protected. As of 2019, the country has over 2,750 nature reserves, covering 15% of China's total land area. Most wild animal species have been eliminated from the agricultural regions of east and central China, but they have fared better in the mountainous south and west.

China has over 32,000 species of vascular plants, and hosts various forest types. It gained of forestland per year between 2015 and 2025. Cold coniferous forests predominate in the north of the country, supporting mammals such as moose and Asian black bear, along with many bird species. The understory of moist conifer forests may contain thickets of bamboo. Higher montane stands of juniper and yew instead feature rhododendrons. Subtropical forests, which are predominate in central and southern China, support a high density of plant species including numerous rare endemics. Tropical and seasonal rainforests, though confined to Yunnan and Hainan, contain a quarter of all the animal and plant species found in China. China has over 10,000 recorded species of fungi.

Environment

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The Three Gorges Dam is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world.

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The China Energy Engineering Corporation 50 MW Hami power tower has 8 hours of molten-salt storage

In the early 21st century, China has suffered from environmental deterioration and pollution due to rapid industrialization. Environmental regulations are fairly stringent, although poorly enforced and often disregarded. China has the second-highest death toll from air pollution,, with approximately 1 million deaths as of 2016. Although China ranks as the highest CO₂ emitting country, it only emits 8 tons of CO₂ per capita, significantly lower than many other developed countries. Greenhouse gas emissions by China are the world's largest.

China has prioritized clamping down on pollution, bringing a significant decrease in air pollution in the 2010s. In 2020, the Chinese government announced its aims for the country to reach its peak emissions levels before 2030, and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 in line with the Paris Agreement. According to China's government, the forest coverage of the country grew from 10% of the overall territory in 1949 to 25% in 2024. In 2024, the government graded 90.4% of China's national surface water suitable for human consumption.

China is the world's leading investor in renewable energy and its commercialization, with $546 billion invested in 2022; it the world's leading manufacturer and innovator of renewable energy technologies and invests heavily in local-scale renewable energy projects. Long heavily relying on non-renewable energy sources such as coal, China's adaptation of renewable energy has increased significantly in recent years. In 2025, 54.4% of China's electricity came from coal (largest producer in the world), 13.2% from hydroelectric power (largest), 11.1% from solar energy (largest), 10.7% from wind (largest), 4.6% from nuclear energy (second-largest), 3.2% from natural gas (fifth-largest), and 2% from bioenergy (largest); in total, 42% of China's energy came from clean energy sources. Despite its emphasis on renewables, China remains deeply connected to global oil markets and next to India, has been the largest importer of Russian crude oil in 2022.

Political geography

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Map depicting territorial disputes between the PRC and neighboring states.

China is the second-largest country by land area after Russia, and the third- or fourth-largest country by total area.Template:Efn China's total area is generally stated as being approximately . Specific area figures range from to .

China has the longest combined land border in the world, measuring . Its coastline covers approximately , from the mouth of the Yalu River to the Gulf of Tonkin. China borders 14 nations, bordering Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar in Southeast Asia; India, Bhutan, Nepal, PakistanTemplate:Efn and Afghanistan in South Asia; Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in Central Asia; and Russia, Mongolia, and North Korea in Inner Asia and Northeast Asia. It has several maritime neighbors.

China resolved the demarcation of its land borders with 12 out of 14 neighboring countries, having pursued substantial compromises in most of them. China currently has disputed borders with India and Bhutan. It is involved in maritime disputes with multiple countries over territory in the East and South China Seas, such as the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and the entirety of South China Sea Islands.

Politics

The People's Republic of China is a communist state under the absolute leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP is officially guided by socialism with Chinese characteristics, which it describes as Marxism adapted to Chinese circumstances. The Chinese constitution states that the PRC "is a socialist state governed by a people's democratic dictatorship that is led by the working class and based on an alliance of workers and peasants", and that "the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party."

The PRC officially characterizes itself as a democracy—more specifically, a whole-process people's democracy—organized around the Leninist principle of democratic centralism. However, the country is commonly described as an authoritarian one-party state and a dictatorship, with very heavy restrictions in many civil areas, notably against freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, free formation of social organizations, freedom of religion and freedom of the Internet. China has consistently been ranked amongst the lowest as an "authoritarian regime" by the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, ranking at 141st out of 167 countries in 2025. In the V-Dem Democracy Indices, China ranks amongst the lowest as a "closed autocracy," ranking at 175th and 172nd out of 179 countries in electoral democracy and liberal democracy indices respectively. Other sources suggest that terming China as "authoritarian" does not sufficiently account for the multiple consultation mechanisms that exist in the Chinese governmental system.

Chinese Communist Party

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The Chinese Communist Party is the founding and governing political party of the People's Republic of China.

The CCP is the founding and sole ruling party of the PRC. According to the CCP constitution, the Party's highest body is the National Congress held every five years. The National Congress elects the Central Committee, which is the CCP's highest organ between congresses and convenes at least once a year. The Central Committee then elects the party's Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee and the general secretary (party leader), the top leadership of the country. The Politburo usually gathers once a month, while the smaller Politburo Standing Committee is thought to meet weekly. The general secretary holds ultimate power and authority over party and state and serves as the paramount leader of China. The current general secretary is Xi Jinping, who took office on 15 November 2012. The National Congress also elects the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the CCP's supreme disciplinary organ.

The government in China is under the sole control of the CCP. The CCP controls appointments in government bodies, with most senior government officials being CCP members. The appointment of CCP cadres and the leadership of all major state-owned enterprises is managed by the party's Organization Department.Template:R/superscript The CCP maintains committees in the each level of government. At the local level, the CCP committee of a subdivision and its secretary outranks the local government and its head; CCP committee of a provincial division and its secretary outranks the provincial people's government and the governor while the CCP committee of a city and its secretary outranks the municipal people's government the mayor. By law, the CCP leads over all major sectors of the country, including politics, military, society, economy, education, culture, diplomacy, ideology, law, national security, and propaganda and media.

Government

The National People's Congress (NPC), with nearly 3,000-members, as the supreme organ of state power holds the unified powers of the state, creating a system where all state organs including the presidency, the State Council, the State Central Military Commission, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the National Supervisory Commission are subject to its oversight through democratic centralism. However, observers often describe it as a "rubber stamp" body. The NPC meets annually, while the NPC Standing Committee, around 175 members elected from NPC delegates, meets every couple of months. Its elections are indirect and not pluralistic, with nominations at all levels being controlled by the CCP by law. The NPC is dominated by the CCP, with another eight minor parties having representation in the body under the condition of upholding CCP leadership.

The NPC elects the president, who is the ceremonial state representative. The incumbent president is Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the CCP and the chairman of the Central Military Commission, making him China's paramount leader and supreme commander of the armed forces. The premier is the head of government, with Li Qiang being the incumbent. The premier is officially nominated by the president and then elected by the NPC, and has generally been either the second- or third-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). The premier presides over the State Council, China's cabinet, composed of four vice premiers, state councillors, and the heads of ministries and commissions. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is a political advisory body that formally leads China's united front system, which aims to gather non-CCP voices to support the CCP. Similar to the people's congresses, CPPCCs have subdivisions; the National Committee of the CPPCC is chaired by Wang Huning, the fourth-ranking member of the PSC.

The governance of China is characterized by a high degree of political centralization but significant economic decentralization.Template:Rp Policy instruments or processes are often tested locally before being applied more widely, resulting in a policy that involves experimentation and feedback.Template:Rp Generally, central government leadership refrains from drafting specific policies, instead using the informal networks and site visits to affirm or suggest changes to the direction of local policy experiments or pilot programs.Template:Rp The typical approach is that central government leadership begins drafting formal policies, law, or regulations after policy has been developed at local levels.Template:Rp

Administrative divisions

The PRC is constitutionally a unitary state divided into 23 provinces,Template:Efn five autonomous regions (each with a designated minority group), four direct-administered municipalities—collectively referred to as "mainland China"—as well as the special administrative regions (SARs) of Hong Kong and Macau. The PRC regards the island of Taiwan as its Taiwan Province, Kinmen and Matsu as a part of Fujian Province, and islands the ROC controls in the South China Sea as a part of Hainan Province and Guangdong Province, though all these territories are governed by the Republic of China (ROC). These divisions are grouped into six statistical regions: North, East, Southwestern, South Central, Northwestern, and Northeast China.

First level administrative divisions of the PRC by type

Type	List
Provinces
	Taiwan (), governed by the Republic of China
Autonomous regions
Direct-administered municipalities
Special administrative regions

Foreign relations

File:Diplomatic relations of China.svg

Diplomatic relations of China

  People's Republic of China (PRC)

  Republic of China (ROC)

  States that have diplomatic relations with the PRC

  States that have diplomatic relations with the ROC

  States that have diplomatic relations with neither

The PRC has diplomatic relations with 179 United Nations member-states and maintains embassies in 174, the largest diplomatic networks of any country in the world. China is of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It is a member of intergovernmental organizations including the G20, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the BRICS, the East Asia Summit, and the APEC. China is also a former member and leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and still considers itself an advocate for developing countries. China is widely described as either a potential or established superpower, due to its influence in the fields of geopolitics, technology, manufacturing, economics and culture.

Chinese foreign policy is officially based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, which emphasizes non-interventionism and encourages diplomatic relations between states despite ideological differences.Template:Rp Per its policy of non-alignment, China maintains no military alliances except its defense treaty with North Korea. Most countries have switched recognition from the ROC to the PRC since the latter replaced the former in the UN in 1971. The PRC officially maintains the one China principle: the view that there is only one sovereign state with the name "China"—represented by the PRC—and that Taiwan is an integral part of China. The unique status of Taiwan has led to countries formally recognizing the PRC to maintain unique "one China policies" that differ from each other; some countries explicitly recognize the PRC's claim over Taiwan, while others, including the U.S. and Japan, only acknowledge the claim.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, 23 October 2024

China's relations with Japan are marked by both deep economic ties as well as tensions over Taiwan, security, and the Senkaku Islands. China has a close political, economic and military relationship with Russia, China's relationship with the United States is complex, and includes deep trade ties but significant political differences. China has close political and economic relations with African nations. It maintains extensive and highly diversified trade links with the European Union. China is increasing its influence in Central Asia and South Pacific. The country has strong trade ties with ASEAN countries and major South American economies, In 2013, China initiated the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a large global infrastructure building initiative.

Military

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Chengdu J-20 5th generation stealth fighter

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the main armed forces of China, under the direct control of the CPC. It consists of four services: the Ground Force, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Rocket Force. It also has four independent arms: the Aerospace Force, the Cyberspace Force, the Information Support Force, and the Joint Logistics Support Force. Its 2 million active duty personnel is the largest in the world. The PLA holds the world's third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and the world's second-largest navy by tonnage.

The PLA is considered one of the world's most powerful militaries and has rapidly modernized in the recent decades. China's official military budget for 2025 totaled US$246 billion (1.78 trillion yuan), the second-largest in the world. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that its real 2025 expenditure was US$336 billion, 12% of global military spending and 1.7% of the country's GDP. The PLA, the People's Armed Police and the Militia are commanded by the Central Military Commission (CMC). The chairman of the CMC is the commander-in-chief of the PLA, who maintains absolute control over the military per the chairman responsibility system.

Sociopolitical issues and human rights

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2019–20 Hong Kong protests

The situation of human rights in China has attracted significant criticism from Chinese dissidents and external observers, alleging widespread civil rights violations such as detention without trial, forced confessions, torture, restrictions of fundamental rights, and excessive use of the death penalty. Since its inception, Freedom House has ranked China as "not free" in its Freedom in the World survey, while Amnesty International has documented significant human rights abuses. Though the Chinese constitution states that the "fundamental rights" of citizens include freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, universal suffrage, and property rights, these provisions do not afford significant protection against criminal prosecution by the state in practice. Censorship of political speech and information is amongst the harshest in the world and is routinely used to prevent collective action. The government suppresses popular protests and demonstrations that it considers a potential threat to "social stability". China additionally uses a massive surveillance network of cameras, facial recognition software, sensors, and surveillance of personal technology as a means of social control of persons living in the country.

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In Xinjiang, China has been accused of detaining more than one million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in internment camps.

China is regularly accused of large-scale repression and human rights abuses in Tibet and Xinjiang by foreign human rights groups, where significant numbers of ethnic minorities reside, including violent police crackdowns and religious persecution. Since 2017, the Chinese government has been engaged in persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, with around one million Uyghurs and other ethnic and religion minorities being detained in internment camps aimed at changing the political thinking of detainees, their identities, and their religious beliefs, in what some external observers described as a genocide or crimes against humanity. According to The New Yorker, political indoctrination, torture, physical and psychological abuse, forced sterilization, sexual abuse, and forced labor are common in these facilities. The Chinese authorities have also cracked down on dissent in Hong Kong, especially after the passage of a national security law in 2020.

In 2017 and 2020, the Pew Research Center ranked the severity of Chinese government restrictions on religion as being among the world's highest, despite ranking religious-related social hostilities in China as low in severity. China has limited protections regarding LGBT rights. The Global Slavery Index estimated that in 2016 more than 3.8 million people (0.25% of the population) were living in "conditions of modern slavery," including victims of human trafficking, forced labor, forced marriage, child labor, and state-imposed forced labor. The state-imposed re-education through labor (laojiao) system was formally abolished in 2013, but it is not clear to what extent its practices have stopped. The much larger reform through labor (laogai) system includes labor prison factories, detention centers, and re-education camps; the Laogai Research Foundation has estimated in June 2008 that there were nearly 1,422 of these facilities, though it cautioned that this number was likely an underestimate.

Public views of government

Political concerns in China include the growing gap between rich and poor and government corruption. Nonetheless, international surveys show the Chinese public have a high level of satisfaction with their government.Template:Rp These views are generally attributed to the material comforts and security available to large segments of the Chinese populace as well as the government's attentiveness and responsiveness. Template:Rp A Harvard University survey published in July 2020 found that citizen satisfaction with the government had increased since 2003, also rating China's government as more effective and capable than ever in the survey's history. A 2020 study by University of Southern California researchers affiliated with the Hoover Institution found that more anonymous surveys show 50% to 70% think the government works for the people, lower than what direct surveys show support at above 90%. Another anonymous survey in a 2023 study by the American Political Science Association found trust in the central government at 76.7%. According to the World Values Survey (2022), 91% of Chinese respondents have significant confidence in their government.Template:Rp

Economy

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Blue hour view of the Bund from the Shanghai World Financial Center

With a GDP of CN¥140 trillion in 2025, China has the world's second-largest economy in terms of nominal GDP, and the world's largest in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). As of 2025, China accounts for around 17% of the global economy by nominal GDP. China is one of the world's fastest-growing major economies, with its economic growth having been almost consistently above 5% since the beginning of the reform and opening up in 1978. According to the World Bank, China's GDP grew from $150 billion in 1978 to $18.74 trillion by 2024. It ranks 75th by nominal GDP per capita, making it an upper-middle income country. Of the world's 500 largest companies, 135 are headquartered in China.

China was one of the world's foremost economic powers throughout the arc of East Asian and global history. The country had one of the largest economies in the world for most of the past two millennia, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the reform and opening up in 1978, China has developed into a highly diversified economy and one of the most consequential players in international trade.

China officially calls its economic system as the socialist market economy, in which the market plays a decisive role in resource allocation under the macro-control of the socialist state. The CCP posits that China is in the primary stage of socialism, the first stage of building a communist society, in a stage where there is private ownership. Modern-day China is often described as an example of state capitalism or party-state capitalism, with both market forces and the state playing a major role in the economy. China has numerous state-owned enterprises; the state dominates in strategic "pillar" sectors such as infrastructure, telecommunications, finance, energy production and heavy industries.Template:Rp The Chinese government issues five-year plans to guide the direction of the economy.Template:Rp Private enterprise has expanded enormously, with around 57 million private businesses recorded in 2025. According to official statistics, privately owned companies constitute more than 60% of China's GDP.

Wealth

File:GDP per capita development in China.svg

GDP per capita in China, from 1850 to 2022

China accounted for 18.6% of the world's total wealth in 2022, second highest in the world after the U.S. China brought more people out of extreme poverty than any other country in history — between 1978 and 2018, China reduced extreme poverty by 800 million,Template:Rp with the average standard of living multiplying by a factor of twenty-six. From 1990 to 2018, the proportion of the Chinese population living with an income of less than $1.90 per day (2011 PPP) decreased from 66.3% to 0.3%, the share living with an income of less than $3.20 per day from 90% to 2.9%, and the share living with an income of less than $5.50 per day decreased from 98.3% to 17%. Per capita incomes have risen significantly – when the PRC was founded in 1949, per capita income in China was one-fifth of the world average; per capita incomes now equal the world average itself.

China's development is highly uneven; its major cities and coastal areas are far more prosperous than its rural and interior regions. It has a high level of economic inequality, which has increased quickly since the economic reforms. Income inequality decreased in the 2010s, and China's Gini coefficient was 0.37 in 2023. In March 2026, Forbes estimated China ranked second in the world, after the U.S., in total number of billionaires and total number of millionaires, with 610 Chinese billionaires, while Hurun Global Rich List estimated it ranked first, with 1,110 billionaires. China also has 6.3 million millionaires as of 2025, second highest after the U.S. In 2019, China overtook the U.S. as the home to the highest number of people who have a net personal wealth of at least $110,000, according to the global wealth report by Credit Suisse. China had 85 female billionaires as of January 2021, two-thirds of the global total. China has had the world's largest middle-class population since 2015; the middle-class grew to 500 million by 2024.

Industry and services

China is the world's leading manufacturing power, accounting for 30% of global manufacturing. It has been the world's largest manufacturing nation since 2010, after overtaking the U.S., which had been the largest for the previous hundred years. China is the world's leading producer of steel and rare earths, the world's leading electronics industry manufacturer, and the world's dominant shipbuilding manufacturer. China has the world's largest market for automobiles, having surpassed the United States in both auto sales and production. The country is the world's largest exporter of cars by number as of 2024. The Chinese automotive industry is regarded as one of the most competitive and innovative in the world. China is the world's leader in electric vehicle consumption, production and innovation, as well as the leading producer of batteries for electric vehicles.

China is the second-largest retail market after the United States. China leads the world in e-commerce, accounting for over 37% of the global market share in 2021. China has three out of the ten largest stock exchanges in the world — Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen — that together have a market capitalization of over $15.9 trillion, as of October 2020. China has three out of the world's ten most competitive financial centers according to the 2026 Global Financial Centres Index—Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen. As of at least 2024, China has the world's second-largest equity markets and futures markets, as well as the third-largest bond market.Template:Rp China has the world's largest banking sector. Its finance sector is dominated by state-owned institutions.

China in the global economy

China has been a member of the World Trade Organization since 2001 and is the world's largest trading power. By 2016, China was the largest trading partner of 124 countries. The country has not run a trade deficit since 1993, with its trade surplus reaching a record $1.2 trillion in 2025. China became the world's largest trading nation in 2013 by the sum of imports and exports, as well as the world's largest commodity importer, accounting for roughly 45% of maritime's dry-bulk market. China's foreign exchange reserves reached US$3.246 trillion as of March 2024, making its reserves by far the world's largest. In 2022, China was amongst the world's largest recipient of inward foreign direct investment (FDI), attracting $180 billion, though most of these were speculated to be from Hong Kong. China also invests abroad, with a total outward FDI of $147.9 billion in 2023.

The Chinese government has promoted the internationalization of the renminbi in order to wean itself off its dependence on the U.S. dollar. The renminbi is the world's fourth-most traded currency as of 2023. However, partly due to capital controls that make the renminbi fall short of being a fully convertible currency, it remains far behind the Euro and the U.S. Dollar in international trade volumes. The Chinese government has also been cited for failing to crack down on the manufacturing and export of counterfeit goods. In 2024, Harvard University's Economic Complexity Index ranked complexity of China's exports 10th in the world, up from 24th in 2010.

Tourism

The Forbidden City is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world

The Forbidden City is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.

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Chongqing Skyline At Night

China received 82 million international visitors in 2025, and in 2018 was the fourth-most-visited country in the world. It also experiences an enormous volume of domestic tourism; Chinese tourists made an estimated 6.5 billion travels within the country in 2025. China hosts the world's second-largest number of World Heritage Sites (60) after Italy, and is one of the most popular tourist destinations (first in the Asia-Pacific).

Science and technology

Historical

File:Chinese Gunpowder Formula.JPG

Earliest known written formula for gunpowder, from the Wujing Zongyao of 1044 CE

China was a world leader in science and technology until the Ming dynasty. Ancient and medieval Chinese discoveries and inventions, such as papermaking, printing, the compass, and gunpowder (the Four Great Inventions), became widespread across East Asia, the Middle East and later Europe. Chinese mathematicians were the first to use negative numbers. By the 17th century, the Western World surpassed China in scientific and technological advancement. The causes of this early modern Great Divergence continue to be debated by scholars.

After repeated military defeats by the European colonial powers and Imperial Japan in the 19th century, Chinese reformers began promoting modern science and technology as part of the Self-Strengthening Movement. After the Communists came to power in 1949, efforts were made to organize science and technology based on the model of the Soviet Union, in which scientific research was part of central planning. After Mao's death in 1976, science and technology were promoted as one of the Four Modernizations, and the Soviet-inspired academic system was gradually reformed.

Modern era

Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, China has made significant investments in scientific research and is quickly catching up with the U.S. in R&D spending. China officially spent around 2.8% of its GDP on R&D in 2025, totaling to around CN¥3.92 trillion ($569 billion). China was ranked 10th in the Global Innovation Index in 2025, a considerable improvement from its rank of 35th in 2013. Chinese supercomputers are ranked among the fastest in the world.Template:Efn China is the world's largest industrial robotics producer and user in the world, accounting for 54% of the world's 2024 total demand, and 43% of global production. Its efforts to develop the most advanced semiconductors and jet engines have seen delays and setbacks. China is also considered a world leader in artificial intelligence.

China is developing its education system with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Its academic publication apparatus became the world's largest publisher of scientific papers in 2016. According to the World Intellectual Property Indicators, China received more applications than the U.S. did in 2018 and 2019 and ranked first globally in patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial designs, and creative goods exports in 2021. In 2022, China overtook the US in the Nature Index, which measures the share of published articles in leading scientific journals.

Space program

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Launch of Shenzhou 13 by a Long March 2F rocket. China is one of the only three countries with independent human spaceflight capability.

The Chinese space program started in 1958 with some technology transfers from the Soviet Union. However, it did not launch the nation's first satellite until 1970 with the Dong Fang Hong I, which made China the fifth country to do so independently.

In 2003, China became the third country in the world to independently send humans into space with Yang Liwei's spaceflight aboard Shenzhou 5. As of 2023, eighteen Chinese nationals have journeyed into space, including two women. In 2011, China launched its first space station testbed, Tiangong-1. In 2013, a Chinese robotic rover Yutu successfully touched down on the lunar surface as part of the Chang'e 3 mission. In 2019, China became the first country to land a probe—Chang'e 4—on the far side of the Moon. In 2020, Chang'e 5 successfully returned Moon samples to the Earth, making China the third country to do so independently. In 2021, China became the third country to land a spacecraft on Mars and the second one to deploy a rover (Zhurong) on Mars. China completed its own modular space station, the Tiangong, in low Earth orbit on 3 November 2022. On 29 November 2022, China performed its first in-orbit crew handover aboard the Tiangong.

In May 2023, China announced a plan to land humans on the Moon by 2030. To that end, China has been developing a lunar-capable super-heavy launcher, the Long March 10, a new crewed spacecraft, and a crewed lunar lander. China sent Chang'e 6 on 3 May 2024, which conducted the first lunar sample return from Apollo Basin on the far side of the Moon. This is China's second lunar sample return mission, the first was achieved by Chang'e 5 from the lunar near side 4 years ago. It also carried a Chinese rover called Jinchan to conduct infrared spectroscopy of lunar surface and imaged Chang'e 6 lander on lunar surface.

Infrastructure

After a decades-long infrastructural boom, China has produced numerous world-leading infrastructural projects: it has the largest high-speed rail network, the most supertall skyscrapers, the largest power plant (the Three Gorges Dam), the most extensive ultra-high-voltage transmission network and innovation infrastructure, and a global satellite navigation system with the largest number of satellites.

Telecommunications

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China Mobile built a 5G station to cover summit of Mount Everest in 2020

China is the largest telecom market in the world and currently has the largest number of active cellphones of any country, with over 1.83 billion subscribers, as of 2025. It has the largest number of internet and broadband users, with over 1.125 billion Internet users as of December 2025 — equivalent to around 80.1% of its population. By 2018, China had more than 1 billion 4G users, accounting for 40% of world's total. As of 2025, China had over 1.204 billion 5G users and 4.84 million base stations installed. China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, are the three large providers of mobile and internet in China. China has developed its own satellite navigation system, dubbed BeiDou, which began offering commercial navigation services across Asia in 2012 as well as global services by the end of 2018. BeiDou followed GPS and GLONASS as the third completed global navigation satellite.

Transport

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Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge, completed 2018. At 55 kilometres, it is the world's longest sea crossing.

Since the late 1990s, China's national road network has been significantly expanded through the creation of a network of national highways and expressways. In 2022, China's highways had reached a total length of , making it the longest highway system in the world. In urban areas, bicycles remain a common mode of transport, despite increasing automobile prevalence – as of 2023, there are approximately 200 million bicycles in China.

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A Fuxing high-speed train running near the Beijing CBD

China's railways, operated by the state-owned China Railway, are among the busiest in the world. As of 2025, the country had of railways, the second-longest network in the world. The railways strain to meet enormous demand particularly during the Chinese New Year's Template:Zh, the world's largest annual human migration. China's high-speed rail (HSR) system started construction in the early 2000s. By the end of 2025, high speed rail in China had reached of dedicated lines alone, making it the longest HSR network in the world, as well as the world's busiest. Services on some lines reach up to , making them the fastest conventional high speed railway services in the world. Since 2000, the growth of rapid transit systems in Chinese cities has accelerated. As of December 2023, 55 Chinese cities have urban mass transit systems in operation.

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Air China, the flag carrier of People's Republic of China

The civil aviation industry in China is mostly state-dominated, with the Chinese government retaining a majority stake in the majority of Chinese airlines. The top three airlines in China are Air China, China Southern Airlines, and China Eastern Airlines, which collectively made up 71% of the market in 2018, are all state-owned. Air travel has expanded rapidly in the last decades, with the number of passengers increasing from 16.6 million in 1990 to 551.2 million in 2017. China had approximately 259 airports in 2024. China has over 2,000 river and sea ports, about 130 of which are open to foreign shipping. Of the fifty busiest container ports, 18 are located in China. The busiest port in the world is the Port of Shanghai. The country's inland waterways are the world's sixth-longest, totaling .

Water supply and sanitation

Water supply and sanitation infrastructure in China is facing challenges such as rapid urbanization, as well as water scarcity, contamination, and pollution. According to the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation, 93% of rural households had access to basic sanitation in 2022 (up from 77% in 2015). The ongoing South–North Water Transfer Project intends to abate water shortage in the north.

Demographics

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Map of China's population density across third-level administrative divisions. Based on the results of the 2020 census.

The 2020 Chinese census recorded the population as approximately 1,411,778,724. About 17.95% were 14 years old or younger, 63.35% were between 15 and 59, and 18.7% were over 60. Between 2010 and 2020, the average population growth rate was 0.53%. Since 2022, deaths have outpaced births. In 2023, the total fertility rate was reported to be 1.09, among the lowest in the world. The National Bureau of Statistics estimated that the population fell 850,000 from 2021 to 2022, the first decline since 1961. In 2025, China recorded 7.92 million births, the lowest recorded birthrate since at least 1949.

Population policies

Given concerns about population growth, China implemented a two-child limit during the 1970s, and, in 1979, began to advocate for an even stricter limit of one child per family. Beginning in the mid-1980s, however, given the unpopularity of the strict limits, China began to allow some major exemptions, particularly in rural areas, resulting in what was actually a "1.5"-child policy from the mid-1980s to 2015; ethnic minorities were also exempt from one-child limits. The next major loosening of the policy was enacted in December 2013, allowing families to have two children if one parent is an only child. In 2016, the one-child policy was replaced in favor of a two-child policy. A three-child policy was announced in May 2021, due to population aging, and in July 2021, all family size limits as well as penalties for exceeding them were removed.

According to one group of scholars, one-child limits had little effect on population growth or total population size. However, these scholars have been challenged. The policy, along with traditional preference for boys, may have contributed to an imbalance in the sex ratio at birth. The 2020 census found that males accounted for 51.2% of the total population. However, China's sex ratio is more balanced than it was in 1953, when males accounted for 51.8% of the population. China maintains a restrictive immigration policy, with permanent residence granted to only around 12,000 foreigners as of 2023.

Urbanization

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Map of the ten largest cities in China (2010)

China has urbanized significantly in recent decades. The percent of the country's population living in urban areas increased from 20% in 1980 to over 68% in 2025, according to Chinese government figures. According to the United Nations, the country's urbanization rate is 83.7%, having peaked in absolute numbers in 2021. China has over 160 cities with a population of over one million, including the 18 megacities as of 2024 (cities with a population of over 10 million) of Chongqing, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Xi'an, Suzhou, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Linyi, Shijiazhuang, Dongguan, Qingdao, Changsha and Hefei. The total permanent population of Chongqing, Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu is above 20 million. Shanghai is China's most populous urban area while Chongqing is its largest city proper, the only city in China with a permanent population of over 30 million. The figures in the table below are from the 2020 census, and are only estimates of the urban populations within administrative city limits; a different ranking exists for total municipal populations. The large "floating populations" of migrant workers make conducting censuses in urban areas difficult; the figures below include only long-term residents.

Ethnic groups

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Ethnolinguistic map of China in 1967

China legally recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups, who comprise the Zhonghua minzu. The largest of these nationalities are the Han Chinese, who constitute more than 91% of the total population. The Han Chinese – the world's largest single ethnic group – outnumber other ethnic groups in every place excluding Tibet, Xinjiang, Linxia, and autonomous prefectures like Xishuangbanna. Ethnic minorities account for less than 10% of the population of China, according to the 2020 census. Compared with the 2010 population census, the Han population increased by 60,378,693 persons, or 4.93%, while the population of the 55 national minorities combined increased by 11,675,179 persons, or 10.26%. The 2020 census recorded a total of 845,697 foreign nationals living in mainland China.

Languages

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Qing dynasty imperial patent in Manchu and Chinese scripts. Wellcome Collection, London.

There are as many as 284 living languages in China. The languages most commonly spoken belong to the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, which contains Mandarin, spoken by 80% of the population, and other varieties of Chinese language. Languages of the Tibeto-Burman branch, including Tibetan, Qiang, Naxi and Yi, are spoken across the southwestern plateaus. Other ethnic minority languages in southwestern China are from Tai-Kadai family, the Hmong–Mien family, and the Austroasiatic family. Across northeastern and northwestern China, ethnic groups speak Tungusic languages, Mongolic languages, Turkic languages, and one Indo-European language, Sarikoli. Korean is spoken along the border with North Korea. Taiwanese indigenous peoples, including a small mainland population, speak Austronesian languages.

Standard Chinese, a variety based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, is the national language of China and holds de facto official status. It is used as a lingua franca between people of different linguistic backgrounds. In the autonomous regions of China, other languages may also serve as a lingua franca, such as Uyghur in Xinjiang, where governmental services in Uyghur are constitutionally guaranteed.

Religion

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Geographic distribution of religions in China:

Template:Colorbull Chinese folk religion (including Confucianism, Taoism, and groups of Chinese Buddhism)
Template:Colorbull Buddhism tout court
Template:Colorbull Islam
Template:Colorbull Ethnic minorities' indigenous religions
Template:Colorbull Mongolian folk religion
Template:Colorbull Northeast China folk religion influenced by Tungus and Manchu shamanism; widespread Shanrendao

Freedom of religion is guaranteed by China's constitution, although religious organizations that lack official approval can be subject to state persecution. The government of the country is officially atheist, and the CCP requires its members to be atheist. Religious affairs and issues in the country are overseen by the National Religious Affairs Administration, under the CCP's United Front Work Department.

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Zixiao Palace (紫霄宫), Wudang Mountains, Hubei. Ming dynasty.

Over the millennia, the Chinese civilization has been influenced by various religious movements. The "three doctrines" of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism have historically shaped Chinese culture, enriching a theological and spiritual framework of traditional religion which harks back to the early Shang and Zhou dynasty. Chinese folk religion, which is framed by the three doctrines and by other traditions, consists in allegiance to the shen, who can be deities of the surrounding nature or ancestral principles of human groups, concepts of civility, culture heroes, many of whom feature in Chinese mythology and history.

Amongst the most popular cults of folk religion are those of the Yellow Emperor, embodiment of the God of Heaven and one of the two divine patriarchs of the Chinese people, of Mazu (goddess of the seas), Guandi (god of war and business), Caishen (god of prosperity and richness), Pangu and many others. In the early decades of the 21st century, the Chinese government rehabilitated folk cults, formally recognizing them as "folk beliefs" as opposed to religions, and often reconstructing them into forms of "highly curated" civil religion. It has also promoted Buddhism nationally and internationally.

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Taoism has served as a state religion several times throughout Chinese history.

Statistics on religious affiliation in China are difficult to gather due to complex and varying definitions of religion and the diffusive nature of Chinese religious traditions. Scholars note an hnclear boundary between the three doctrines and local folk religious practices. Chinese religions or some of their currents are also definable as non-theistic and humanistic, since they do not hold that divine creativity is completely transcendent, but that it is inherent in the world and in particular in the human being. In 2023, according to surveys done by Pew Research Center, 93% of respondents were formally unaffiliated with any religion. However, 75% visit family graveyards each year, 47% believe in feng shui, 33% believe in Buddha, 26% burn incense to deities each year and 18% believe in Taoist deities. These are not exclusive beliefs and often these will overlap as the respondents will have multiple beliefs at the same time. For example, of those 33% who believe in Buddha, a significant portion also believe in figures such as Taoist immortals, Jesus Christ, Catholic God and Allah. A variety of organized salvationist movements have emerged since the Song period. There are also ethnic minorities in China who maintain their own indigenous religions, while major religions characteristic of specific ethnic groups include Tibetan Buddhism and Islam.

Education

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Beijing's Peking University, one of the top-ranked universities in China

Compulsory education in China comprises primary and junior secondary school, together lasting from ages 6 to 15. The Template:Zh, China's national university entrance exam, is a prerequisite for entrance into most higher education institutions. Vocational education is available to students at the secondary and tertiary level. More than 10 million Chinese students graduated from vocational colleges every year. In 2024, about 92% of students continued their education at a three-year senior secondary school, while 60.8% of senior secondary school graduates enrolled in higher education.

China has the largest education system in the world, with about 287 million students and 18.85 million full-time teachers in over 470,300 schools in 2024. Annual education investment went from less than US$50 billion in 2003 to more than US$960 billion in 2020. China's literacy rate has grown dramatically, from only 20% in 1949 and 65.5% in 1979, to 97% of the population over the age of 15 in 2020.

As of 2024, China has over 3,167 universities, with over 47.6 million students enrolled in mainland China, giving China the largest higher education system in the world. As of 2025, China had the world's highest number of top universities. China is home to two of the highest-ranking universities (Tsinghua University and Peking University) in Asia and emerging economies, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

Health

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Chart showing the rise of China's Human Development Index from 1970 to 2010

The National Health Commission, together with its counterparts in the local commissions, oversees the health needs of the population. An emphasis on public health and preventive medicine has characterized Chinese health policy since the early 1950s. The Communist Party started the Patriotic Health Campaign, which was aimed at improving sanitation and hygiene, as well as treating and preventing several diseases. Diseases such as cholera, typhoid and scarlet fever, which were previously rife in China, were nearly eradicated by the campaign.

After the beginning of the reform and opening up in 1978, the health of the Chinese public improved rapidly because of better nutrition, although many of the free public health services provided in the countryside disappeared. Healthcare in China became mostly privatized, and experienced a significant rise in quality. In 2009, the government began a three-year large-scale healthcare provision initiative worth US$124 billion, which resulted in 95% of China's population having basic health insurance coverage by 2011. By 2022, China had established itself as a key producer and exporter of pharmaceuticals, producing around $40 of active pharmaceutical ingredients in 2017.

As of 2025, the life expectancy at birth exceeds 79 years. As of 2024, the infant mortality rate is 4 per 1,000. Both have improved significantly since the 1950s.Template:Efn Rates of stunting, a condition caused by malnutrition, have declined from 33.1% in 1990 to 4.5% in 2024. Despite significant improvements in health and the construction of advanced medical facilities, China has several emerging public health problems, such as respiratory illnesses caused by widespread air pollution, hundreds of millions of cigarette smokers, and an increase in obesity among urban youths. Chinese mental health services are inadequate. China's large population and densely populated cities have led to serious disease outbreaks, such as SARS in 2003, although this has since been largely contained. The COVID-19 pandemic was first identified in Wuhan in December 2019; China responded to the pandemic with a zero-COVID approach until 2022 following protests.

Culture

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Moon gate at Xiaojinshan, Slender West Lake, Yangzhou, Jiangsu.

Since ancient times, Chinese culture has been heavily influenced by Confucianism. Chinese culture, in turn, has heavily influenced East Asia and Southeast Asia. For much of the country's dynastic era, opportunities for social advancement could be provided by high performance in the prestigious imperial examinations, which have their origins in the Han dynasty. The literary emphasis of the exams affected the general perception of cultural refinement in China, such as the belief that calligraphy, poetry and painting were higher forms of art than dancing or drama. Chinese culture has long emphasized a sense of deep history and a largely inward-looking national perspective. Examinations and a culture of merit remain greatly valued in China today.

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Wang Family Compound, Lingshi, Shanxi. Ming and Qing dynasty.

Though the Mao Zedong attacked traditional Chinese culture during the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government has accepted numerous elements of traditional Chinese culture as being integral to Chinese society. With the rise of Chinese nationalism and the end of the Cultural Revolution, various forms of traditional Chinese art, literature, music, film, fashion and architecture have seen a revival, and folk and variety art in particular have sparked interest nationally and even worldwide.

Architecture

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The main hall of Nanchan Temple, Wutai County, Shanxi, completed in 782 CE, the oldest surviving timber-framed building in China.

Chinese architecture has developed over millennia in China and has remained a vestigial source of perennial influence on the development of East Asian architecture, including in Japan, Korea, and Mongolia. and minor influences on the architecture of Southeast and South Asia including the countries of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Chinese architecture is characterized by bilateral symmetry, use of enclosed open spaces, feng shui (e.g. directional hierarchies), a horizontal emphasis, and an allusion to various cosmological, mythological or in general symbolic elements. Chinese architecture traditionally classifies structures according to type, ranging from pagodas to palaces.

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The Sakyamuni Pagoda of Fogong Temple in Ying County, Shanxi, built in 1056 during the Liao dynasty, it is the world's tallest surviving timber-framed structure.

Chinese architecture varies widely based on status or affiliation, such as whether the structures were constructed for emperors, commoners, or for religious purposes. Other variations in Chinese architecture are shown in vernacular styles associated with different geographic regions and different ethnic heritages, such as the stilt houses in the south, the Yaodong buildings in the northwest, the yurt buildings of nomadic people, and the Siheyuan buildings in the north.

Literature

Chinese literature has its roots in the Zhou dynasty's literary tradition. The classical texts of China encompass a wide range of thoughts and subjects, such as the calendar, military, astrology, herbology, and geography, as well as many others. Among the most significant early works are the I Ching and the Shujing, which are part of the Four Books and Five Classics. These texts were the cornerstone of the Confucian curriculum sponsored by the state throughout the dynastic periods. Inherited from the Classic of Poetry, classical Chinese poetry developed to its floruit during the Tang dynasty. Li Bai and Du Fu opened the forking ways for the poetic circles through romanticism and realism respectively. Chinese historiography began with the Shiji, the overall scope of the historiographical tradition in China is termed the Twenty-Four Histories, which set a vast stage for Chinese fictions along with Chinese mythology and folklore. Pushed by a burgeoning citizen class in the Ming dynasty, Chinese classical fiction rose to a boom of the historical, town and gods and demons fictions as represented by the Four Great Classical Novels which include Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber. Along with the wuxia fictions of Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng, it remains an enduring source of popular culture in the Chinese sphere of influence.

In the wake of the New Culture Movement after the end of the Qing dynasty, Chinese literature embarked on a new era with written vernacular Chinese for ordinary citizens. Hu Shih and Lu Xun were pioneers in modern literature. Various literary genres, such as misty poetry, scar literature, young adult fiction and the xungen literature, which is influenced by magic realism, emerged following the Cultural Revolution. Mo Yan, a xungen literature author, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012.

Music

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The Drunken Concubine (贵妃醉酒), a classic Peking opera

Chinese music covers a highly diverse range of music from traditional music to modern music. Chinese music dates back before the pre-imperial times. Traditional Chinese musical instruments were traditionally grouped into eight categories known as bayin (八音). Traditional Chinese opera is a form of musical theatre in China originating thousands of years and has regional style forms such as Beijing and Cantonese opera. Chinese pop includes mandopop and cantopop. Chinese hip-hop has become popular.

Fashion

Hanfu is the historical clothing of the Han people in China. The qipao or cheongsam is a popular Chinese female dress. The contemporary hanfu movement seeks to revitalize Hanfu clothing. China Fashion Week is the country's only national-level fashion festival.

Media

The mass media of China primarily consists of television, newspapers, radio, and magazines. State media outlets operate under the control of the CCP. The CCP's Publicity Department acts as the main enforcer of media censorship and control in China. The largest media organizations are the People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, and the China Media Group consisting of China Central Television, China Global Television Network, China National Radio and China Radio International. Access to foreign media remains heavily restricted.

Cinema was first introduced to China in 1896 and the first Chinese film, Dingjun Mountain, was released in 1905. China has had the largest number of movie screens in the world since 2016; China became the largest cinema market in 2020, and domestic movies dominate the market. The top three highest-grossing films in China as of 2025 were Ne Zha 2 (2025), The Battle at Lake Changjin (2021), and Wolf Warrior 2 (2017). In 2025, the video game market of China was the world's largest by revenue.

China has the most comprehensive and sophisticated Internet censorship regime in the world called the Great Firewall, with numerous websites being blocked. The Great Firewall has allowed China to develop its own major internet services and companies, such as Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili and Weibo.Template:Rp The Cyberspace Administration of China acts as the national internet regulator and censor. China requires a real-name system for Internet services and online platforms.

Cuisine

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Map showing major regional cuisines of China

Chinese cuisine is highly diverse, drawing on several millennia of culinary history and geographical variety, in which the most influential are known as the "Eight Major Cuisines", including Sichuan, Cantonese, Jiangsu, Shandong, Fujian, Hunan, Anhui, and Zhejiang cuisines. Chinese cuisine is known for its breadth of cooking methods and ingredients. China's staple food is rice in the northeast and south, and wheat-based breads and noodles in the north. Bean products such as tofu and soy milk remain a popular source of protein. Pork is now the most popular meat in China, accounting for about 60% of the country's total meat consumption. Pork-free Chinese Islamic cuisine is served at halal-certified restaurants in various regions while vegetarian Buddhist cuisine is commonly found at restaurants near shrines and temples.

Sports

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Go is an abstract strategy board game for two players, in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent, and which was invented in China more than 2,500 years ago.

China has one of the oldest sporting cultures. There is evidence that archery (shèjiàn) was practiced during the Western Zhou dynasty. Swordplay (jiànshù) and cuju, a sport loosely similar to association football originate in China's early dynasties.

Physical fitness is widely emphasized in Chinese culture, with morning exercises such as qigong and tai chi widely practiced, and commercial gyms and private fitness clubs are gaining popularity. Basketball is the most popular spectator sport in China. The Chinese Basketball Association and the American National Basketball Association also have a huge national following amongst the Chinese populace. China's professional football league, known as Chinese Super League, is the largest football market in East Asia. Other popular sports include martial arts, table tennis, badminton, swimming and snooker. China is home to a huge number of cyclists, with an estimated 470 million bicycles as of 2012. China has the world's largest esports market. Many traditional sports, such as dragon boat racing, Mongolian-style wrestling and horse racing are also popular.

China has participated in the Olympic Games since 1932. China hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where its athletes received 48 gold medals – the highest of the participant nations. Beijing and the nearby Zhangjiakou collaboratively hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics, making Beijing the first city to hold both Summer and Winter Olympics. China hosted the Asian Games in 1990, 2010, and 2023.

See also

• Outline of China

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References

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External links

Government

• The Central People's Government of People's Republic of China

General information

• Country profile – China at BBC News
• China. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
• China, People's Republic of (archived 2012) from UCB Libraries GovPubs

Maps

• Google Maps—China
• File:Internet-web-browser.svg Wikimedia Atlas of the People's Republic of China
• File:Openstreetmap logo.svg Geographic data related to China at OpenStreetMap