Chinas Geography and Demography

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Chinas Geography and Demography

• The settings in which Chinese civilization evolved

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Is China in the center of the world?

• Chinas relative isolation from other
  civilizations in the West Egyptian, Greek, and
  Roman
• East the Pacific
• West the Himalaya (south) Gobi desert (north)
• North cold Siberian waist lands
• South ragged mountains and jungle

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What are the results of Chinas geographic
isolation?

• A distinct civilization like no other
• The Chinese language sharing no commonality with
  other linguistic systems
• Historical continuity with an unbroken written
  history since 800s B.C.
• Unity under one government in spite of periodical
  wars and revolutions (24 dynasties since 221
  B.C.)

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Landscape a mountainous nation

• The breakdown
• 43 mountains hills
• 26 highland plateau
• 12 plains
• 19 basins
• The great slide from west to east
• From the Himalayas (6000 m) to the sea
• Result all river systems going one direction
• The need for the Grand Canal

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Two major river systems

• Yellow river in the north 2700 miles
• The loop that cut through the Yellow Soil
  Plateau yellow silt colors the river
• Silt deposit raising river bed causing flood
• Heightened dikes made it a river above the land
  and the river of sorrow
• Source of irrigation for North China Plan the
  cradle of Chinese civilization

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• Yangzte (Yangzi) River in the south 3200 miles
• 1630 miles navigable up to Chongqing via the
  Three Gorges
• Source of irrigation for Eastern China Plain
  Szechuan (Sichuan) Basin
• Economic center since Song Dynasty (9th century)

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The impact of geographic features

• Limited arable land
• With a growing population
• 1600 160 million
• 1779 275 million
• 1850 430 million
• 1949 450 million
• 2000 1.3 billion shanghai.JPG shanghaia.JPG
• Struggle for limited resources leading to
  political upheavals and violent revolutions
• Technology human endeavor terracing, intensive
  farming (rice culture)

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Chinas Landscape Terracing
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Climate

• The enormous north-south stretch causes varied
  climate
• ManchuriaNewfoundland CantonCuba
• Weather makers
• Winter cold air from Siberia
• Summer moist oceanic air from South Pacific
• Rainfall in Yangzi River valley enables 2-3 crops
  of rice per year
• The division of rice and wheat regions between
  the two major rivers

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The peoples

• Han 95 in eastern half of the land
• Mongoles in the north
• Tibetans in the southwest
• Hui (Muslins in the northwest Xinjiang Province)
• Manchus in the northeast (integrated)
• Nationality v. ethnicity China, a nation or an
  empire?

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