Location and Geography
The People's Republic of China is the full official name. The capital of China is Beijing. It has a land area about 9. 6 million square kilometers and it is the third largest countries in land size in the whole world. Located in East Asia, on the western shores of the Pacific Ocean, it has a continental land boundary of more than 20,000 kilometers and adjoins Korea in the east, the People's Republic of Mongolia in the north, Russia and Kazakhstan in the northeast and northwest, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan in the west and southwest and Burma, Laos and Vietnam in the south. The continental coastline is more than 18,000 kilometers long, and looks across the seas towards Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Over 66% of China is upland hill, mountains and plateaus while the highest mountains and plateaus are found to the west.
China is a country with many mountain ranges and highlands , which form the basic features of China's topography. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the highest and largest plateau which is commonly known as "the roof of the world". Qomolangma in the Himalayas Mountains is located on the border between China and Nepal, being the world's highest peak, having an elevation of 8, 848. 13 meters.

The main administrative division in China today are the four municipalities directly under the central government, the twenty-three provinces and the five autonomous regions. Hong Kong and Macao are the two special administrative zones.

The longest river in China, and the third longest river in the world, is the 6,300-kilometer-long Changjiang, more commonly known in the West as the Yangtze River. The Changjiang River rises in the Tanggula Mountains of Qinghai Province.

The Changjiang River is China's lifeline. Its estuary is north of Shanghai, where it is 13-km wide when it flows into the Yellow Sea. The river flows through nine provinces, with its 700 tributaries, covers an area of 1. 8 million km2 which is 19 percent of the total area of China. The river flows through most of the important industrialized area in China. It also forms a delta where the density of the population is the highest in the south. This shows how important a role this river has played.

Next is the Yellow River, or Huanghe River, which is the second longest river in China. Tracing to a source in the nation's far west, it loops north, bends south, and flows east for 5,464 km until it empties into the sea, draining a basin of 745, 000 km2, which nourishes 120 million people. Millennia ago the Chinese civilization emerged from the central region of this basin.

As the most heavily silt-laden river in the world, the Yellow River got its name from the muddiness of its water, which bears perennial ochre-yellow color.

Except the natural rivers and lakes, there are also many canals in China. The most famous is the Grand Canal between Beijing and Hangzhou, 1,782 kilometers in length, which passes through the city of Tianjin and four provinces and links up with five major rivers;
The continent of China faces east and south towards the seas. In the east, the most well-known sea is Bohai: the Liaodong peninsula and the Shandong peninsula confront each other to form a natural gateway known as the Bohai straits. Southeast of Bohai is the Huanghai (Yellow Sea), south of the mouth of the Changjiang is Donghai (East China Sea) , and south of the Taiwan Straits is Nanhai (South China Sea). Over 5,000 islands are scattered across the seas, with half of them located in Donghai, forming a total area of about 80, 000 square kilometers. The largest island in China is Taiwan, about 35,700 square km. The next is Hainan Island (over 34,000 square km).

Many seaports are built along China's long and winding coastline. The river estuary ports of Tianjin, Shanghai, Guanzhou and Qingdao are important centers for foreign trade and economic exchange within China.

China lies in two of the world's major zoogeographic regions, the Palearctic and the Oriental. The Qing Zang Plateau, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia Autonomous regions, northeastern China, and all areas north of the Huanghe are in the Palearctic region. Central, southern, and southwest China lie in the Oriental region. In the Palearctic zone are found such important mammals as the river fox, horse, camel, tapir, mouse hare, hamster, and jerboa. Among the species found in the Oriental region are the civet cat, Chinese pangolin, bamboo rat, tree shrew, and also gibbon and various other species of monkeys and apes. Some overlap exists between the two regions because of natural dispersal and migration, and deer or antelope, bears, wolves, pigs, and rodents are found in all of the diverse climatic and geological environments. The famous giant panda is found only in a limited area along the Changjiang