Facts about China

(There are also many demographic and Economic facts about China on the CIA web site )

Thanks to the world bank

• Real GDP grew a stronger than expected: 11.5 percent in the first three quarters of 2007
• GDP growth is projected to be 11.5 percent in 2007
• In 1985 average income in China was $293; in 2006 the average income is $2,025.
• China achieved 14 percent of the world economy on purchasing power parity basis in 2005 (second to the United States)
• China contributed one-third of global economic growth in 2004
• In 2004, China accounted for half of global growth in metals demand, and one-third global growth in oil demand
• China's economy has a high energy intensity. The country uses 20-100 percent more energy than OECD countries for many industrial processes. Automobile standards lag behind European standards by ten years. And China has 20 of the world's 30 most polluted cities, largely due to high coal use and motorization
• Foreign exchange reserves exceed $1000 billion (exceed Japan), and are growing at about $200 billion a year.· About 20 percent of China's exports go to the United States.

Thanks to Fun Facts

• Ice cream was invented in China around 2000BC when the Chinese packed a soft milk and rice mixture in the snow.
• China is the fourth largest country in the world. China is sometimes a day ahead of the United States.
• The Chinese year is based on the cycles of the moon. This is called a lunar schedule. A complete cycle of the Chinese calendar takes 60 years. The Chinese calendar dates back to 2600 B.C. It is the oldest known calendar.
• Each year is represented by an animal. There are twelve animals which represent the twelve months.
• According to readings Buddha named the years after the twelve animals that came to visit him before he left the earth. The Chinese believe that you have some of the characteristics of the animal representing the year in which you were born.
• When a Chinese child loses a baby tooth, it doesn't get tucked under the pillow for the tooth fairy. If the child loses an upper tooth, the child's parents plant the tooth in the ground, so the new tooth will grow in straight and healthy. Parents toss a lost bottom tooth up to the rooftops, so that the new tooth will grow upwards , too.
• It is considered good luck for the gate to a house to face south.
• We know that the Chinese grew rice as long as 5000 BC Archaeologists have found rice grains in farming tools and pots from that period.
• Long ago, silk making was a closely guarded secret. Anyone who gave the secret away could be killed.
• At one time, Chinese patriots hoped to rid themselves of hated foreign conquerors. To announce the time of an uprising, the patriots hid messages in moon cakes.
• Red is considered a lucky color in China. At one time wedding dresses were red. New Year's banners, clothing, and lucky money envelopes are still red.
• Fourth graders are expected to know 2,000 of the over 40,000 written Chinese characters. By the time they leave college, they will know 4,000 or 5,000 characters. Each character is learned by looking at it and memorizing it.
• Unlike the 26 letters of our alphabet, words cannot be sounded out letter by letter

• The Great Wall of China was started over two and a half thousand years ago and is more than 5,000 km long.
• One-fifth of the world's population lives in China.
• Chinese cuisine can be divided into northern, eastern, southern (Cantonese) and central and southwestern (Sichuan).
• Chinese people live in modern buildings in the towns, farmhouses in rural areas; houses made of bamboo and even caves in the mountains and sampans (houseboats) on the rivers and in harbours.
• Chinese wildlife includes tigers, leopards, snow leopards, monkeys, yaks and giant pandas. The birdlife includes peacocks, parrots, cranes and storks.
• Cormorants are used by some fishermen on the rivers to catch fish for them.
• Bamboo is a very fast growing plant which can grow up to one metre a day. Its eaten by Pandas.
• Thousands of years ago the Chinese had developed a calendar, writing, the wheel and a thriving silk industry and was advanced in astronomy and mathematics. It was the first to invent gunpowder hich was used for fireworks.
• Crops include rice, wheat, maize, millet, sorghum, soya beans, rapeseed, sesame, sugar, tea (20% of the world's supply) as well as potatoes, peanuts, pineapple, bananas and vegetables, honey and eggs, poultry and pork. Cattle, sheep and camels are farmed (camel hair is used for good quality paint brushes).
• China is among the world's largest producers of cotton and Silk production has been an important part of the Chinese economy for thousands of years.
• The forestry industries produce pine, oak, teak and mahogany.
• China produces fish such as cod, tuna and dolphin, prawns and also freshwater fish.
• China has deposits of iron ore, tin and tungsten and also produces coal and oil.
• China is particularly famous for its ceramics - in fact, guess where our word for "china" plates comes from!!!
• Chess is also a favourite pastime. Other popular board games are Go and Mahjong. Try Mahjong at A Fun Zone. You may have to look about for the game a little but its beautiful.
• The most important celebration is the Chinese New Year. This is the biggest national holiday and shops and offices are closed for three days. As well as the traditional festivals, the Chinese commemorate the founding of the Chinese Communist Party and there a number of special celebration days such as a teachers' day.

Thanks to The World Info Zone

• China is one of the largest countries in the world and has more people than any other country.
• Shanghai is one of the world's largest cities.
• Mandarin Chinese is the world's most spoken language with over 870 million speakers.
• Tian'anmen Square is the largest public plaza in the world.
• A fossil of the world´s oldest flower (142 million years old) has been found in China.
• The Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1987, was used by Homo erectus from about 460,000 to 230,000 years ago.
• The Great Wall of China is more than 1,500 miles long and took many years to build. It is the only man-made structure which can be seen from outer space.
• Thousands of years ago the Chinese had developed a calendar, writing and the wheel.
• Nearly four thousand years ago China's scribes recorded a sighting of "ten flying suns" in the sky.
• The Chinese used lodestones as compasses about four thousand years ago.
• Chinese writing uses pictures or characters.
• Paper and movable type (separate pieces for each character) were invented in China hundreds of years before they were used in Europe.
• The oldest surviving printed book in the world is Chinese - a Buddhist text printed in 868 AD.
• Early mathematical texts have been discovered on books of bamboo strips.
• The Terracotta Army set up to protect the Emperor Qin in his tomb probably included around eight thousand life-size figures. All the figures carry real swords, spears or bows and the metal weapons were still sharp when discovered.
• In the eleventh century the Chinese learnt how to bake their pottery at temperatures high enough to produce porcelain (very fine, thin and hard). When this pottery came to Europe it was called "china" and that was the name kept when European potters learned how to make it themselves.
• The Chinese discovered how to make silk thousands of years ago. The trail travelled by the merchants who brought it to Europe for the Romans and others was called the Silk Road.
• Two European monks were sent to China in the sixth century to discover the secret of silk. They managed to steal some silkworm eggs which they hid inside a hollow bamboo and brought the silk moth to Europe.
• A Chinese ship, estimated to be eight hundred years old, was raised from the bed of the South China Sea in December 2007. The 30-metre wooden junk, built during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), could provide evidence of an ancient maritime trade route linking China and the West.
• During the Ming Dynasty China began to turn inwards, following isolationist policies.
• Kung fu was practised by the Shaolin monks who took twenty years to become masters in the art.
• China's oldest mosque is in Canton and dates back to trade with merchants from the Middle East who brought Islam to China.
• Every Chinese Year is named after one of twelve animals, such as monkey, horse, etc. People born in a particular animal's year are believed to have some of that animal's characteristics.
• Tea drinking began in China about 1,800 years ago. Tea houses are a popular meeting place for men who go there to play games such as Go or cards.
• Traditional Chinese medicine uses many herbal remedies.
• Ginseng has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. A wild ginseng root is worth much more than a cultivated root.
• Acupuncture is the use of fine needles inserted into particular points of the body to cure certain illnesses.
• Because small feet were thought beautiful in a woman, girls' feet used to be bound tightly with bandages to stop them growing properly. This was forbidden by law in 1911. (The smallest shoes were 8 cm long and known as the Lotus Foot).
• The Manchus (Qing Dynasty) who ruled China between 1644 and 1911 enforced the Chinese to wear the Manchu pigtail.
• Dr Sun Yat-Sen (1867-1925) was the first leader of republican China and is thought of as the founder of modern China.
• The flag of the People's Republic of China was raised by Chairman Mao in Tian'anmen Square in October 1949. This spot is now marked by a granite obelisk.
• In 1556 an earthquake in Shensi killed over eight hundred thousand people.
• In 1976 an earthquake in Tangshan claimed the lives of around six hundred and fifty thousand people.
• An earthquake at Yunnan killed over three hundred people and injured many thousands in February 1996. Less than a year later, a quake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale left 44,000 people homeless in Zhangbei (150 miles from Beijing), over fifty people dead and many thousands injured.