China

The land of 5,000 years of civilisation and inventions

China is one of the most populous countries in the world: 1.4 billion people — one in every six people on Earth is Chinese! The Chinese invented paper, the compass, gunpowder and printing. The Great Wall is 21,000 km long. The panda lives only here. Chinese writing has no letters — more than 50,000 characters, and school children learn 3,000. The Silk Road began in China and passed through Uzbekistan.

Capital: Beijing. Language: Chinese (Mandarin).

The People's Republic of China covers 9.6 million km² (3rd) with 1.41 billion people (2nd after India since 2023) and 56 ethnic groups (Han 91%). Nature: the Himalayas (Everest on the border), the Tibetan Plateau, the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts, the Yangtze (6,300 km, Asia's longest), the Yellow River. History: the Shang dynasty (1600 BC), Qin Shi Huang the first emperor (221 BC, the Terracotta Army), the Han (opening the Silk Road — Zhang Qian reached Fergana), the Tang (Sogdian merchants from Samarkand in Chang'an), the Ming, the Qing, the 1912 republic, the PRC since 1949. The 'Four Great Inventions': paper, printing, the compass, gunpowder; plus silk, tea, porcelain. Economy: the world's 2nd largest, the 'world's factory', high-speed rail (45,000 km). With Uzbekistan: the Belt and Road Initiative and the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway project.

Fun facts

• One in six people on Earth lives in China.
• China has 45,000 km of high-speed railway — two thirds of the world's total.
• Paper, the compass, gunpowder and printing were invented in China.