The 中华¹ (Zhōnghuá) People's Republic

How is the land laid out?

The 中华 (Zhōnghuá) People's Republic has 9.6 million square kilometers. It is longer east to west than north to south, and stretches northeast. Its sea coast is convex as far north as the Bo (Po or Chihli) Gulf (Hai), except for the Leizhou (Luichow) and Shandong (Shan-tung) peninsulas (bandao). Northeast of Bo Gulf is the Liaodong (Liao-tung) Peninsula. South of the Leizhou Peninsula is the island of Hainan.

The physiography of the 中华 (Zhōnghuá) People's Republic has two super-imposed characteristics. It falls off from a high west to the east coast in two steps at about the 3,000 and 1,000 meter marks. And mountain ranges are generally aligned west to east.

In the southwest is the very high Tibetan plateau. It is bounded north by the Kunlun and the Qilian (Ch'i-lien) Mountains (Shan), east by the Daxue (Ta-hsueh) Range, and south by the Himalayas. Mount Everest (Oomonlangma or Sagamatha) on the Nepali border is the world's highest peak (above 8,800 meters). The Kunlun boast two peaks called Muztag (both above 7,700 meters) and the Daxue have Mount Gongga (similarly tall). Several of Asia's ten² longest rivers (jiang, chiang, he or ho) start in these heights: the Chang (Yangtze), Huang (Yellow), Mekong, Indus and Brahmaputra. The largest lake (hu or nor or nur) is Qinghai (Ch'ing Hai or Koko).

The northwest violates the general 'west equals high' rule, with low arid basins surrounded by high mountains. The three most important basins (pendi) are the Tarim, Dzungaria (Junggar) and the Turpan (Turfan). Between the first two are the Tian (Tien, that is, Heavenly) Mountains; northeast of Dzungaria are the Altai; south of the Tarim basin are the Kunlun and the Altun, and west of it, the Karakorum and the Pamir. Western Dzungaria is not bounded by moutains; rather the heights' east to west orientation allows passage out of China. shadowed by mountains like the Dzungarian Alatau. K2 (Qogir or Godwin-Austen) in the Karakorum is the world's second highest peak (feng) at more than 8,500 meters. Other important ones are Kongur in the Pamirs (above 7,700 meters), Pobedy in the Tian on the Kyrgyz border (above 7,400 meters), Kuyten-(Kujten-)Uul in the Altai on the Mongolian border (above 4,300 meters) and Tuokusidawan in the Altun (above 6,700 meters). Neither the Ili nor the Tarim Rivers bring their waters to the sea; the only one that does is the Irtysh³ in the far north. The largest lake in the northwest is Lop.

Between the high west and the lower east are plateaus (Inner Mongolia, the northwestern and North China loess plateaus and the South China limestone plateaus) and the Sichuan (Szechwan or Ssu-ch'uan) Basin. The eastern bound of the Inner Mongolian Plateau is the Greater (Tai or Dai) Hinggan (Khingan) Range (Ling), and its south one, the Yin, which also separates the Gobi desert from others to its south. The Qin (Tsin) Range separates North China from Central China and the Nan (South) Mountains divide Central China from the southeast.

In the east are the Manchuarian Plain (although the very east rises again), the North China Plain (interrupted by the Shantung Peninsula) and the mid-Chang spill lake area. Manchuria's plain and both sides of the Hinggan Range are drained by the Amur (Heilong) River⁴ system: the Artun' (Ergun), Songhua and Wasuli (Usuri). In China's southeast the land rises again toward the Fujian (Fukien) coast. The Huang River reaches the sea⁵ north of the Shantung Peninsula, although it has in the historic past gone to its south. South of it are the Huai, the Chang and the Xi (West) rivers. Important lakes--connected with the Chang or Huai rivers--are Dongting (Tung-t'ing), Poyang (P'o-yang), Chao (Ch'ao), Hongze (Hung-tse), Gaoyou (Kao-yu) and Tai (T'ai).

Who lives there?

There are more than a billion citizens.

Most people in the 中华 (Zhōnghuá) People's Republic and in Taiwan speak Chinese, which they view as a single language, both for cultural-poltical reasons, and because all spoken forms share on written language. Linguists categorize the divers spoken forms into several languages or dialect groups. The most important by far is Putonghua (Mandarin), spoken in much of the north, northeast and center, and in parts of the south center and west. Wu is the form used in 浙江⁷ (Zhèjiāng), Gan in Jiangxi (Kiangsi or Chiang-hsi), Xiang (or Hunanese) in Hunan, Yue in Guandong (Kwangtung or Kuang-tung) and other southern places, and Min in Fujian,⁸ especially near the coast.

There are many regional non-Chinese minorities, generally outnumbered by the Chinese. In northwestern Sinkiang there are many Kazakhs; in that province's southwest Uighurs predominate, and in Tibet, most speak one of two Tibetan languages: Central Tibetan or Khams--the latter in the province's north-center and east.

Most Chinese, if observant, practice a syncretic blend of religions: Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and folk ways. Islam is practiced by a minority of Chinese and by most all Kazakhs and Uighurs. Lamist Buddhism is the choice of Tibetans.

There are many cities with over a million metropolitan residents: the national capital Beijing (Peking), nearby Tiānjīn (Tientsin), the two chief ports, Xianggang (Hong Kong) and 上海 (Shànghăi), the remaining province-level municipality, Chóngqìng (Chungking), and the provincial capitals of Chéngdū (Ch'eng-tu) and Guangzhou (Canton) have over ten million in their metropolitan areas as do Hā'ěrbīn, Nányáng and Línyí. A complete list, including links to additional tables, can be found here.

Within the area

Gānsù, Qīnghǎi, Shǎnxī, Sìchuān, Hēilóngjiāng, Jílín, Liáoníng, Héběi, Shānxī, Hénán, Húběi, Guìzhōu, Yúnnán, Shāndōng, Ānhuī, Jiāngsū, Nèi Měnggǔ, Níngxià, Běijīng, Tiānjīn and Chóngqìng

新疆 (Xīnjiāng)
浙江 (Zhèjiāng) Province and Shànghăi Municipality (上海 Municipality)⁹
Jiangxi Province
Hunan Province
Guangxi Autonomous Region
Fujian Province
Guangdong and Hainan Provinces; Hong Kong and Macao
Tibet Region

Footnotes

1. Zhōnghuá or Chung-hua or Junghwa in transliterated Pŭtōnghuà Chinese. The first character means central and the second means Chinese/ illustrious/ flowery. China is its English name. In the Wu dialect group it transliterates as Tsonkoh.
2. Ranks in Asia are Chang (first, fourth in the world); Huang, fourth, seventh in the world; Mekong, fifth (tenth in the world); Indus (eighth) and Brahmaputra (tenth).
3. Part of the Ob-Irtysh (Ertix) system, which is Asia's second longest river, the world's fifth.
4. Asia's sixth longest.
5. Actually, as of recently, all the river's water is used up by mankind before it gets there.
6. Fujian Province and Taiwan are grouped together. Min Chinese is used by the majority in both.
7. Zhèjiāng or Che-Chiang or Jejyang in transliterated Pŭtōnghuà Chinese. It is also called Chekiang (former postal designation based on the Nanjing dialect). The first character is a phonetic marker coupled with the water radical. In reconstructed Old Chinese it was pronounced like tet, and was a proto-Wu term for the Yue people according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang, accessed August 10, 2016. The second character means river.
8. Min is sometimes regarded as several languages. It has many names.
9. Shànghăi or Shang-hai in transliterated Pŭtōnghuà Chinese. The first character means above and the second sea, so a reasonable translation is Upon-the-Sea. In the Shanghai dialect of the Wu dialect group it transliterates as Zånhae.