Introducing China: It's Big... really Big!

Here are some numbers that will give you an idea of how Big China really is, in every sense of the word (these numbers are taken from Knowledge News, a very interesting publication providing general knowledge to the North Americans who actually care about this kind of stuff):

"Big Geographic Numbers

3.7 million – China's total area, in square miles (9.6 million sq km). Only Russia and Canada are significantly larger. China is about the same size as the United States. Whether it's slightly larger or slightly smaller depends on whether you count certain disputed territories.

14 – Number of countries that border on China. China's longest borders are with Mongolia, Russia, and India. Each is more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) long.

Big Population Numbers

1.3 billion – China's total population. That's more than four times as many people as live in the United States, and about a fifth of the people on Earth. India is the only other nation with more than a billion people, and it still has 200 million fewer than China.

33 – Number of top-level administrative divisions in China, including 22 provinces, 4 municipalities, 5 autonomous regions (including Tibet), and 2 special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Each of the eight most populous provinces has at least 64 million people--more than Britain, France, or Italy. If any of those provinces were an independent nation, it would rank among the world's 20 most populous.

10 million – Population of Shanghai, China's largest city. Beijing, the capital, is home to about 7.5 million people, and Hong Kong to another 7 million. Since the 1950s, China has urbanized rapidly, but most of the people--around 60 percent--still live in rural areas.

Big Economic Numbers

7 trillion - China's gross domestic product (GDP), in U.S. dollars, adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). That's second only to the United States, whose GDP (PPP) is nearly $14 trillion. Basically, a nation's GDP is the value of all the goods and services it produces in a year. Economists adjust GDP for purchasing power parity to account for the fact that a dollar buys more in some places than it does in others.

Tenfold – Increase in China's GDP since 1978, when the communist regime opened up to foreign investment and began implementing market-based reforms.

53 – Percentage of China's population that lived in poverty in 1981, according to the World Bank. By 2001, the number had fallen to 8 percent. Of course, given China's size, that still amounts to more than 100 million people.

59 billion – Amount China says it will spend on its military in 2008, in U.S. dollars. The Pentagon says China's actual military expenditures will be much higher--perhaps more than twice that much. But that's still far less than the $583 billion the U.S. military has budgeted for 2008." by Steve Sampson

Of course, we will also have to mention the Chinese Wall, the only human built structure visible from space, the Grand Canal as well as the Three Gorges Dam that spans the Yangtze River in Sandouping, Yichang, Hubei. (More information about the dam will be provided in the next blog... )

It is for good reason that China has been labeled "the sleeping Dragon". And guess what: it's not sleeping anymore!