Geography of China

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China stretches some 5,026 kilometers across the East Asian landmass in an erratically changing configuration of broad plains, expansive deserts, and lofty mountain ranges, including vast areas of inhospitable terrain. The eastern half of the country, its seacoast fringed with offshore islands, is a region of fertile lowlands, foothills and mountains, desert, steppes, and subtropical areas. The western half of China is a region of sunken basins, rolling plateaus, and towering massifs, including a portion of the highest tableland on earth.

The vastness of the country and the barrenness of the western hinterland have important implications for defense strategy. In spite of many good harbors along the approximately 18,000-kilometer coastline, the nation has traditionally oriented itself not toward the sea but inland, developing as an imperial power whose center lay in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River on the northern plains.

China also has the Tibet Plateau towards the south. The Tibet Plateau is a very large plateau with very high altitudes. To the north of the Tibet Plateau lies the Gobi Desert, one of the world's largest and hottest[citation needed] deserts, which stretches mostly into Mongolia.

Location

File:Map of China (physical).png
East-Asia (PDF)

Eastern Asia, bordering the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea, between North Korea and Vietnam.

Geographic coordinates: 35°00′N 105°00′E / 35.000°N 105.000°E / 35.000; 105.000

Border countries

  • Coastline: 14,500 km

Maritime claims:

  • Contiguous zone: 24 nautical miles (44 km)
  • Continental shelf: 200 nautical miles (370 km) or to the edge of the continental margin
  • Territorial sea: 12 nautical miles (22 km)

Area

  • Total: 9,596,960 km² (disputed)
    • land: 9,326,410 km²
    • water: 270,550 km²

China is the world's third- or fourth-largest country in total area (after Russia, Canada, and the United States), and is the second largest country by land area.

Figures for the size of China differ slightly depending on where one draws a number of ill-defined boundaries. The official figure by the People's Republic of China is 9.6 million square kilometers, making the country slightly smaller than Canada, and somewhat larger than the United States. The Republic of China based in Taiwan puts this figure at 11 million square kilometers, but this includes Mongolia, an independent sovereign state. China's contour is reasonably comparable to that of the United States and lies largely at the same latitudes.

Terrain and drainage

The Geography of China
NASA composite satellite photo

From the Tibetan Plateau, other less-elevated highlands, rugged east-west trending mountains, and plateaus interrupted by deep depressions fan out to the north and east. A continental scarp marks the eastern margin of this territory, a scarp that extends from the Greater Khingan Range in northeastern China, through the Taihang Mountains (a range of mountains overlooking the North China Plain) to the eastern edge of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in the south. Virtually all of the low-lying areas of China, which support dense population and intensive cultivation, are to the east of this scarp line.

The east-west ranges include some of Asia's greatest mountains. In addition to the Himalayas and the Kunlun Mountains, there are the Kailash (Gangdise) and the Tian Shan ranges. The latter stands between two great basins, the massive Tarim Basin to the south and the Dzungarian Basin to the north. Rich deposits of coal, oil, and metallic ores lie in the Tian Shan area. The largest inland basin in China, the Tarim Basin measures 1,500 kilometres from east to west and 600 kilometres from north to south at its widest parts.

The Himalayas form a natural boundary on the southwest as the Altai Mountains do on the northwest. Lesser ranges branch out, some at sharp angles from the major ranges. The mountains give rise to all the principal rivers.

The spine of the Kunlun Mountains separates into several branches as it runs eastward from the Pamir Mountains. The northernmost branches, the Altyn-Tagh and the Qilian Range, form the rim of the Tibetan Plateau in west-central China and overlook the Qaidam Basin, a sandy and swampy region containing many salt lakes. A southern branch of the Kunlun Mountains divides the watersheds of the Yellow River (Huang He) and the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang). The Gansu Corridor, west of the great bend in the Yellow River, was traditionally an important communications link with Central Asia.

North of the 3,300-kilometre-long Great Wall, between Gansu Province on the west and the Greater Khingan Range on the east, lies the Mongolian Plateau, at an average elevation of 1,000 metres above sea level. The Yin Mountains, a system of mountains with average elevations of 1,400 metres, extends east-west through the center of this vast desert steppe peneplain. To the south is the largest loess plateau in the world, covering 600,000 square kilometers in Shaanxi Province, parts of Gansu and Shanxi provinces, and some of Ningxia-Hui Autonomous Region. Loess is a yellowish soil blown in from the Inner Mongolian deserts. The loose, loamy material travels easily in the wind, and through the centuries it has veneered the plateau and choked the Yellow River with silt.

Because the river level drops precipitously toward the North China Plain, where it continues a sluggish course across the delta, it transports a heavy load of sand and mud from the upper reaches, much of which is deposited on the flat plain. The flow is channelled mainly by constantly repaired manmade embankments; as a result the river flows on a raised ridge fifty metres or more above the plain, and waterlogging, floods, and course changes have recurred over the centuries. Traditionally, rulers were judged by their concern for or indifference to preservation of the embankments.

Flowing from its source in the Tibetan highlands, the Yellow River courses toward the sea through the North China Plain, the historic centre of Chinese expansion and influence. Ethnic Chinese people have farmed the rich alluvial soils of the plain since ancient times, constructing the Grand Canal of China for north-south transport. The plain itself is actually a continuation of the Manchurian Plain to the northeast but is separated from it by the Bohai Gulf, an extension of the Yellow Sea.

Like other densely populated areas of China, the plain is subject not only to floods but to earthquakes. For example, the mining and industrial centre of Tangshan, about 165 kilometres east of Beijing, was levelled by an earthquake in July 1976 that reportedly also killed 242,000 people and injured 164,000.

The Qinling mountain range, a continuation of the Kunlun Mountains, divides the North China Plain from the Yangtze River Delta and is the major physiographic boundary between the two great parts of China Proper. It is in a sense a cultural boundary as well, influencing the distribution of custom and language. South of the Qinling divide are the densely populated and highly developed areas of the lower and middle plains of the Yangtze and, on its upper reaches, the Sichuan Basin, an area encircled by a high barrier of mountain ranges.

The country's longest and most important waterway, the Yangtze River is navigable over much of its length and is now the site of the Three Gorges Dam. Rising on the Tibetan Plateau, the Yangtze River traverses 6,300 kilometers through the heart of the country, draining an area of 1.8 million square kilometers before emptying into the East China Sea. The Sichuan Basin, favoured by a mild, humid climate and a long growing season, produces a rich variety of crops; it is also a leading silk-producing area and an important industrial region with substantial mineral resources.

Second only to the Qinling as an internal boundary is the Nanling, the southernmost of the east-west mountain ranges. The Nanling overlooks the part of China where a tropical climate permits two crops of rice to be grown each year. Southeast of the mountains lies a coastal, hilly region of small deltas and narrow valley plains; the drainage area of the Pearl River (Zhu Jiang) and its associated network of rivers occupies much of the region to the south. West of the Nanling, the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau rises in two steps, averaging 1,200 and 1,800 metres in elevation, respectively, toward the precipitous mountain regions of the eastern Tibetan Plateau.

The Hai River, like the Pearl and other major waterways, flows from west to east. Its upper course consists of five rivers that converge near Tianjin, then flow seventy kilometers before emptying into the Bohai Gulf. Another major river, the Huai, rises in Henan Province and flows through several lakes before joining the Yangtze near Yangzhou.

Inland drainage involving a number of upland basins in the north and northeast accounts for about 40 percent of the country's total drainage area. Many rivers and streams flow into lakes or diminish in the desert. Some are useful for irrigation.

China's extensive territorial waters are principally marginal seas of the western Pacific Ocean; these waters wash the shores of a long and much-indented coastline and approximately 5,000 islands. The Yellow, East China, and South China seas, too, are marginal seas of the Pacific Ocean. More than half the coastline (predominantly in the south) is rocky; most of the remainder is sandy. Hangzhou Bay roughly divides the two kinds of shoreline.

Climate

The average annual precipitation in different regions of China

The climate of China is extremely diverse; subtropical in the south to subarctic in the north.

Monsoon winds, caused by differences in the heat-absorbing capacity of the continent and the ocean, dominate the climate. Alternating seasonal air-mass movements and accompanying winds are moist in summer and dry in winter. The advance and retreat of the monsoons account in large degree for the timing of the rainy season and the amount of rainfall throughout the country. Tremendous differences in latitude, longitude, and altitude give rise to sharp variations in precipitation and temperature within China. Although most of the country lies in the temperate belt, its climatic patterns are complex.

China's northernmost province Heilongjiang has a subarctic climate; its southernmost point, Hainan Island (an island away from mainland China), has a tropical climate. Temperature differences in winter are great, but in summer the diversity is considerably less. For example, the northern portions of Heilongjiang Province experience an average January mean temperature of below 0°C, and the reading may drop to minus 30°C; the average July mean in the same area may exceed 20 °C. By contrast, the central and southern parts of Guangdong Province experience an average January temperature of above 10 °C, while the July mean is about 28 °C.

Precipitation varies regionally even more than temperature. China south of the Qinling mountains experiences abundant rainfall, most of it coming with the summer monsoons. To the north and west of the range, however, rainfall is uncertain. The farther north and west one moves, the scantier and more uncertain it becomes. The northwest has the lowest annual rainfall in the country and no precipitation at all in its desert areas.

Natural resources

Coal, iron ore, petroleum, natural gas, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminium, lead, zinc, uranium, hydropower potential (world's largest)

Land use:

  • Arable land: 14%
  • Permanent crops: 0%
  • Permanent pastures: 43%
  • Forests and woodland: 14%
  • Other: 33% (1993 est.)

China's water resources include 2,711.5 billion cubic meters of runoff in its rivers and 828.8 billion cubic meters which was pumped annually from shallow aquifers circa 2000. As pumping water draws water from nearby rivers, the total available resource is 2,821.4 billion cubic meters. 80.9% of these resources are in the Yangtze River basin. In 1993, 498,720 square kilometers were irrigated.

Natural hazards

Frequent typhoons (about five per year along southern and eastern coasts), damaging floods, monsoons, tsunamis, earthquakes, droughts afflict China. On 23 August 1976, a major earthquake in Tangshan killed hundreds of thousands of people. However, most regions of China do not experience earthquakes, due to them being a long distance away from fault lines, and the paucity of volcanoes in China. Tangshan is one of the few places in China that is located within an earthquake zone.

Environment

Main article: Environment of China

Current Issues

Air pollution (greenhouse gases, sulfur dioxide particulates) from reliance on coal, produces acid rain; Eastern part of China often experiences smoke and dense fog in the atmosphere as a result of industrial pollution;

Water shortages, particularly in the north; water pollution from untreated wastes and use of debated standards of pollutant concentration rather than Total Maximum Daily Load;

Deforestation; estimated loss of one-fifth of agricultural land since 1949 to soil erosion and economic development; Desertification; the Gobi desert has increased in size so much that it is now reaching close to Beijing outskirt. trade in endangered species; although there is now laws to prohibit such activities.

International Agreements

China is a party to the Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, the Antarctic Treaty, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Climate Change treaty, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Endangered Species treaty, the Hazardous Wastes treaty, the Law of the Sea, the International Tropical Timber Agreements of 1983 and 1994, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, and agreements on Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, and Wetlands protection.

China has signed, but not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and the Nuclear Test Ban treaty.

Wildlife

China lies in two of the world's major zoogeographic regions, the Palearctic and the Oriental. The Tibetan Plateau, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Manchuria all areas north of the Yellow River, are in the Palearctic region. Central, southern, and southwest China lie in the Oriental region. In the Palearctic zone are found such important mammals as the river fox, horse, camel, tapir, mouse hare, hamster, and jerboa. Among the species found in the Oriental region are the civet cat, Chinese pangolin, bamboo rat, treeshrew, and also gibbon and various other species of monkeys and apes. Some overlap exists between the two regions because of natural dispersal and migration, and deer or antelope, bears, wolves, pigs, and rodents are found in all of the diverse climatic and geological environments. The famous giant panda is found only in a limited area along the Chang Jiang.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Maps of China.
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