Geography of China

Taiwan, Aksai Chin, the Trans-Karakoram Tract, a South China Sea Islands, the Senkaku Islands, & South Tibet. As sovereignty over Hong Kong together with Macau were restored to China in 1997 and 1999, two special administrative regions were setting under the One Country, Two Systems policy. The People's Republic of China is either the third or fourth largest country in the world, being either slightly larger or slightly smaller than the United States depending on how the area of the United States is measured.

China has great physical diversity. The eastern plains and southern coasts of the country consist of fertile lowlands and foothills. They are the location of near of China's agricultural output and human population. The southern areas of the country south of the Yangtze River consist of hilly and mountainous terrain. The west and north of the country are dominated by sunken basins such(a) as the Gobi and the Taklamakan, rolling plateaus, and towering massifs. It contains component of the highest tableland on earth, the Tibetan Plateau, and has much lower agricultural potential and population.

East China and South China straddle along the Pacific Ocean, with the South China Sea to the south, and the East China Sea and Yellow Sea to the east.

Traditionally, the Chinese population centered on the ] More recently, the 18,000 km 11,000 mi coastline has been used extensively for export-oriented trade, causing the coastal provinces to become the leading economic center.

Human geography

Chinese history is often explained in terms of several strategic areas, defined by particular topographic limits. Starting from the Chinese central plain, the former heart of the Han populations, the Han people expanded militarily and then demographically toward the Loess Plateau, the Sichuan Basin, and the Southern Hills as defined by the map on the left, non without resistance from local populations. Pushed by its coparatively higher demographic growth, the Han continued their expansion by military and demographic waves. The far-south of present-day China, the northern parts of today's Vietnam, and the Tarim Basin were number one reached and durably subdued by the Han dynasty's armies. The Northern steppes were always the detail of reference of invasions into China, which culminated in the 13th century by Mongolian conquest of the whole China and establishment of Mongolian Yuan dynasty. Manchuria, much of today's Northeast China, and Korean Peninsula were usually not under Chinese control, with the exception of some limited periods of occupation. Manchuria became strongly integrated into the Chinese empire during the gradual Qing dynasty, while the west side of the Changbai Mountains, formerly the home of Korean tribes, thus also entered China.