China

China is a country in East Asia reaching from the Pacific coast to the Himalayas and the deserts of the interior. The Yangtze and Yellow rivers cross its plains, and Mount Everest stands on its border with Nepal at 8,848 m (29,029 ft).

Beijing is the capital and Shanghai the largest city; Standard Chinese, based on the Beijing dialect, is the official language. Farming villages spread along the lower Yellow River by 6000 BC. The Shang dynasty left oracle bone writing, and the Zhou ruled a league of vassal states until the Warring States period. In 221 BC Qin Shi Huang united the land as its first emperor, and the Han dynasty, ruling from 206 BC to 220 AD, opened the Silk Road, along which Buddhism arrived. China gave the world paper, printing, the compass and gunpowder.

The Tang centralized the state, the Song spread printed books, and Kublai Khan founded the Yuan dynasty. The Ming, from 1368, moved the capital to Beijing and built the Forbidden City, and the Qing followed. Sun Yat-sen proclaimed the Republic of China in 1912, and Mao Zedong declared the People's Republic of China in 1949. It is a unitary state led by the Chinese Communist Party, divided into 33 province-level units, including the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. The country covers 9.6 million km2 (3.7 million sq mi).

China makes more goods than any other country, from steel and ships to cars, and high-speed trains serve most large cities. The Three Gorges Dam has the greatest capacity of any power station, and the Tiangong space station orbits the Earth. Confucianism and Daoism began there, and the Great Wall and the Grand Canal are World Heritage Sites. The giant panda lives in its mountain forests, and the Spring Festival, the Qingming Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival are its main holidays.