Portal:China
 |
China (simplified Chinese: 中国; traditional Chinese: 中國; literally "the Middle Kingdom") is a cultural region, a civilisation, and a country in East Asia, that is home to one-fifth of the world's population.
China is the world's oldest continuous civilization, consisting of states and cultures dating back more than 5,000 years. Its history has been largely characterized by repeated divisions and reunifications amid alternating periods of peace and war, and violent imperial dynastic change. The country's territory expanded outwards from a core area in the North China Plain, and varied according to its changing fortunes to include regions of East, Northeast, and Central Asia. For centuries, Imperial China was also one of the world's most technologically advanced civilizations, and East Asia's dominant cultural influence, with Chinese religion, customs, and writing systems being adopted to varying degrees by neighbors such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam, and having an impact lasting to the present day.
China also has the world's longest continuously used written language system, the Chinese language, and is the source of many major inventions, such as the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China: paper, the compass, gunpowder, and the printing press. Its landscape is diverse with forest steppes and deserts in the dry north near Mongolia and Russia's Siberia, and subtropical forests in the south close to Vietnam, Laos, and Burma. The terrain in the west is rugged and high altitude, with the Himalayas and the Tian Shan mountain ranges forming China's natural borders with India and Central Asia, while in contrast, China's eastern seaboard is low-lying and has a 14,500-kilometre long coastline bounded on the southeast by the South China Sea, and on the east by the East China Sea.
Since 1949, and as a result of the stalemate of the Chinese Civil War, two political entities have been using the name "China": the People's Republic of China, which is often what is meant by the term China, and the Republic of China, which is more commonly known as Taiwan.
See also: 
Portal:People's Republic of China and 
Portal:Republic of China
Selected article
Chinese New Year (simplified Chinese: 春节; traditional Chinese: 春節; pinyin: Chūn jié), or Spring Festival or the Lunar New Year (simplified Chinese: 农历新年; traditional Chinese: 農曆新年; pinyin: Nóng lì xīn nián), is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an important holiday in East Asia. The festival proper begins on the first day of the first lunar month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called the Lantern Festival (simplified Chinese: 元宵节; traditional Chinese: 元宵節; pinyin: yuánxiāojié).
Chinese New Year's Eve is known as Chúxì (除夕). Chu literally means "change" and xi means "Eve".
Celebrated in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese, Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had a strong influence on the new year celebrations of its neighbours. These include Koreans, Mongolians, Nepalese, Bhutanese, Vietnamese, and formerly the Japanese before 1873.
In countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, The Philippines, Thailand, and other countries with significant Chinese populations, the Lunar New Year is also celebrated, largely by ethnic Chinese, but it is not part of the traditional cultures of these countries. In Thailand, for example, the true New Year celebration of the ethnic Thais is Songkran, which is totally different and is celebrated in April. (More...)
Selected biography
listen (help·info) (simplified Chinese: 邓小平; traditional Chinese: 鄧小平; pinyin: Dèng Xiǎopíng; Wade–Giles: Teng Hsiao-p'ing; 22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese politician, statesman, theorist, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng became a reformer who led China towards a market economy. While Deng never held office as the head of state or the head of government, he nonetheless served as the Paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 to the early 1990s.
Inheriting a country wrought with social and institutional woes left over from the Cultural Revolution and other mass political movements of the Mao era, Deng became the core of the "second generation" of Chinese leadership. He is called "the architect" of a new brand of socialist thinking, having developed Socialism with Chinese characteristics and led Chinese economic reform through a synthesis of theories that became known as the "socialist market economy". Deng opened China to foreign investment, the global market, and limited private competition. He is generally credited with advancing China into becoming one of the fastest growing economies in the world for over thirty years and vastly raising the standard of living of hundreds of millions of Chinese.
Did you know...
- ... China shares its borders with fourteen different countries, including Russia, India, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, North Korea and Pakistan?
- ... that China has over 1.3 billion people, with the capital (Beijing) having 19 612 368 people, while the largest city in China is Shanghai, having 23 019 148 people?
- ... the average life expectancy age of a Chinese child at birth is 74.68 years, ranking 95th compared to the rest of the world?
- ... the current chief of state is President Hu Jintao, the 6th president and paramount leader of the People's Republic of China?
- ... the head of government in China is the Premier? The current premier of China is Wen Jiabao. A premier has one executive vice premier (currently Li Keqiang) and three vice premiers (Zhang Dejiang, Hui Liangyu and Wang Qishan).
Selected picture
 |
| Central Pier 9 and the skyline of Hong Kong at night.
Photo credit: Baycrest |
In the news
- February 5: UN resolution on Syria vetoed by Russia and China
- January 28: Wikinews Shorts: January 28, 2012
- January 22: China to run low-cost maglevs by next year
- January 20: Wikinews Shorts: January 20, 2012
- January 18: India and China to develop friendly relations
- December 15: Authorities blockade Chinese town rebelling over land dispute
- October 22: Chinese girl who was hit and run by two drivers, ignored by eighteen people, dies
- September 10: Out of space in outer space: Special report on NASA's 'space junk' plans
- August 17: Chinese human rights activist faces trial
- August 16: Wikinews interviews Chinese-American martial artist Alfred Hsing
Things you can do
 Complete list | Chinese noticeboard
|
Related portals
Related WikiProjects
 |
You are invited to participate in WikiProject China, a WikiProject dedicated to developing and improving articles about China. |
Main: China
Arts: Cinema • Entertainment • Go (board game) • Martial arts
Geography: Cities • Provinces • Hong Kong • Macau • Taiwan • Tibet
History: History • Military history • Three Kingdoms
Language: Chinese surnames • CJKV
Politics: Politics
Religion: Buddhism • Christianity • Taoism
Images: Cartography
Miscellaneous: Transportation • Uyghurs of Western ChinaTopics
- History of China - Timeline of Chinese history - Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors - Xia - Shang - Zhou (Spring and Autumn Period - Warring States Period) - Qin -
Han - Xin - Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei - Shu Han - Eastern Wu) - Jin - Sixteen Kingdoms - Southern and Northern Dynasties - Sui - Tang - Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period - Liao - Song - Western Xia - Jin - Yuan - Ming - Qing - History of the Republic of China - History of the People's Republic of China - Taiwan after World War II
- Geography of China - Environment - Flora and fauna - Provinces - Counties[disambiguation needed
] - Cities
- Culture of China - Architecture - Art - Calligraphy - Cinema - Clothing - Cuisine - Law - Literature - Martial arts - Medicine - Music - Mythology - Philosophy - Religion - Social structure
- Chinese language - Chinese grammar - Classical Chinese - Written Chinese (Chinese character - Traditional Chinese characters - Simplified Chinese characters) - Spoken Chinese (Mandarin Chinese - Wu Chinese - Cantonese - Min Chinese - Xiang Chinese - Hakka - Gan) - Chinese as a second language
- Ethnic groups in China - Bai - Blang - Bonan - Buyei - Dai - Daur - De'ang - Derung - Dong - Dongxiang - Evenk - Gaoshan - Gelao - Han - Hani - Hezhen - Hui - Jing - Jingpo - Jino - Kazakh - Kirgiz - Korean - Lahu - Lhoba - Li - Lisu - Manchu - Maonan - Miao - Monba - Mongol - Mulao - Nakhi - Nu - Oroqen - Pumi - Qiang - Russian - Salar - She - Shui - Tajik - Tatar - Tibetan - Tu - Tujia - Uyghur - Uzbek - Va - Xibe - Yao - Yi - Yugur - Zhuang - Ethnic minorities - Undistinguished ethnic groups
- For topics about the two political entities that make up modern-day China, see Portal:People's Republic of China and Portal:Republic of China.
Categories
Wikipedias in languages found in China
粵語 / 廣東話 (Cantonese) • 古文 / 文言文 (Classical Chinese) • 贛語 (Gan) • Hak-kâ-fa (Hakka) • قازاق تىلى (Kazakh) • 中文 / 普通話 (Mandarin) • 閩東語 (Min Dong) • 閩南語 (Min-nan) • བོད་ཡིག (Tibetan) • ئۇيغۇرچە (Uyghur) • 吳語 / 吳儂軟語 (Wu) • Sawcuengh (Zhuang)
Associated Wikimedia
- What are portals?
- List of portals
- Featured portals
