The people's Republic of China is a country in east Asia. It is divided into provinces and has a total area of 9,596,960 km2. The climate is extremely diverse; tropical in the south to sub-arctic in north. The terrain is mostly mountains, high plateaus, deserts in west; plains, deltas, and hills in the east. Natural resources are coal, iron ore, crude oil, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminium, lead, zinc and uranium, China also has the world's largest hydropower potential. The religion is officially atheist, but traditionally pragmatic and eclectic; most important elements of religion are Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism (introduced around 65 AD); about 2-3% Muslim, 1% Christian. The language is Standard Chinese (Putonghua) or Mandarin (based on the Beijingdialect); also Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghainese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, and other Chinese languages are also spoken, in all there are 201 currently used Chinese languages and one extinct Chinese language.
China was at one time known by its Tartar name of Cathay, meaning 'Middle Kingdom'. In 1900, the Chinese empire was the third largest in the world, just smaller than those of Britain and Russia.
Abbreviations
Gazetteer
Research China