A brief history

As one of the oldest civilisations of the world, China has a written history of more than 4,000 years. The first dynasty, Xia, was founded in 2070 BC. In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang (Yinzheng) put an end to the 250 years of wars between vassals and thus founded the Qin Dynasty, the first united feudal kingdom of highly centralised power.

From then on, the feudal history of China extended for more than 2,000 years and was shaped by the life and death of another 14 dynasties, including Han, Tang, Song, Ming and Qing. The highlights of this long period include some of the most well-known epics of ancient China, such as the Great Wall (first constructed by Qin Shi Huang), the Silk Road (opened during Han, 206-220 BC), the Four Great Inventions–paper, printing technology, the compass and gunpowder (introduced to the rest of the world between the 10th and 14th centuries) and Admiral Zhen He's great voyage to the Southern Oceans (between 1405 and 1433), the most ambitious exploration in the pre-Columbus era.

In 1911, the last Chinese dynasty, Qing, fell to the nationalists under the leadership of Dr Sun Yat-sen.

The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949.

Facts & figures

Capital: Beijing

Head of State: President Hu Jintao (elected March 15, 2003)

National flag: Red flag with five stars

Land size: China has an area of 9,600,000 square kilometres and is the third-largest country, next only to Russia and Canada. It has 130.04 million hectares of cultivated land.

Location: In the east of the Asian continent, on the western shore of the Pacific Ocean.

Border countries: North Korea, Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadzhikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

Climate: Extremely diverse; tropical in the south to sub-Arctic in the north.

Geography: Mountains, high plateaus and deserts in the west; plains, deltas and hills in the east. The highest mountain in China is the highest mountain in the world: Mount Qomolangma (Mount Everest). The mountain towers above all others at 8,844 metres. China's urban area is 412,700 square kilometres.

Population: China is the world's most populous country with 1.30756 billion people at the end of 2005, one-fifth of the world's total. This figure does not include the Chinese living in the Hong Kong and Macau special administrative regions and Taiwan Province. By the end of 2005, China had 562,120,000 urban residents, according to an annual report by the Ministry of Construction.

Population density: The population density is 134 people a square kilometre, roughly four times greater than that of the United States. The average urban population density is 847 people a square kilometre.

Population ethnicity: 91.6 percent of Chinese people are Han. The non-Han population includes 55 ethnic minorities, of whom the major groups are the Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uygur, Yi, Tujia, Mongolian, and Tibetan.

Population distribution: Most of the people of China live along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, Yangtze River and Pearl River, and the Northeast Plain. In 2000, a "Go-West" campaign was launched by the government to help its relatively backward western and central areas catch up with the more affluent eastern China.

Religions: The number of religious worshippers in China is estimated at well over 100 million, most of whom follow Buddhism. Other major religions are Taoism, Islam and Christianity in both its Catholic and Protestant forms.

Languages: Standard Chinese (Mandarin). Simplified form of characters is used on China's mainland for writing. The original complex form is used mainly in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Economy: China's economy has boomed since 1978 as a result of sweeping economic reforms. GDP grew from US$128 billion in 1980 to US$2,279 billion in 2005. The import and export volume for 2005 topped US$1,422.1 billion and contracted foreign direct investment reached US$167.2 billion. Per capita income for 2005 was US$1,290.

Education: China has 1,731 institutes of higher learning (statistics of 2005). High-school is the highest education of 42.8 percent of the population, while 19 percent have college or university degrees. The illiteracy rate is 8.72 percent, compared with 22.23 percent 10 years ago. Ninety percent of illiterate people live in rural areas.