A Passage to China (走近中国) - The Nation

China, the People’s Republic of China as its official name, is situated in East Asia, on the western shores of the Pacific Ocean. It has a land boundary totaling over 22,800 kilometers, with 15 contiguous countries, adjoining Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the east Mongolia in the north, Russia in the northeast and Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan and Tajikistan in the northwest, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan in the west and southwest and Burma, Laos and Vietnam in the south. Across the Yellow Sea to the east are Republic of Korea and Japan, and across the East China and the South China Sea to southeast and south are the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. China has a total land area of about 9.6 million square kilometers, ranking only after Russia and Canada, as the third largest country in the world.

Territory

The territory of China, from north to south, measures some 5,500 kilometers, stretching from the center of the Heilongjiang River north of the town of Mohe (latitude 53°30′N) to the Zengmu Reef at the southernmost tip of the Nansha Islands (latitude 4°). When north China is still covered with snow, people in south China are busy with spring plowing. From west to east, the nation extends about 5,200 kilometers from the Pamirs (longitude 73°4′E), with a time difference of over four hours. When the Pamirs are cloaked in night, the morning sun is shining brightly over east China.

Topography

China’s topography is varied and complicated, with towering mountains, basins of different sizes, undulating plateaus and hills, and flat and fertile plains. China is mostly mountains, high plateaus, deserts in the west; plains, deltas, and hills in the east. A bird’s-eye view of China would indicate that China’s terrain descends in four steps from west to east.

The top of this four-step “staircase” is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Averaging more than 4,000 meters above the sea level, the highest and largest, it is often called the “roof of the world”, with the Mt. Qomolangma of 8,848.13 meters, the world’s highest peak, in the Himalayan Mountains between China and Nepal. Starting from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the west, the topography of China leads towards the ocean in the east.

The second step includes the Inner Mongolia, Loess and Yunnan-Guizhou plateaus, and the Tarim , Junggar and Sichuan basins, with an average elevation of between 1,000 meters and 2,000 meters.

The third step, about 500–1,000 meters in elevation, begins at a line drawn around the Greater Hinggan, Taihang, Wushan and Xuefeng mountain ranges and extends eastward to the coast. Here, from north to south is the Northeast Plain, the North China Plain and the Middle-Lower Yangtze Plain. Intersperse amongst the plains are hills and foothills.

The fourth step of the of the staircase is flanked to the east and south on the continental shelf with less-than-200-meter depth of water, by the Bohai Sea, the Continental Sea, and the Yellow Sea and South China Sea, and the marginal seas of the Pacific Ocean, with a total maritime area of more than 4.73 million square kilometers. China’s coast is more than 32,000 kilometers long, with more than 5,400 islands scattered over its vast territorial waters. The largest of these islands is TaiWan, with an area of about 36,000 square kilometers, and the second largest is Hainan with an area of 34,000 square kilometers, both as provinces of China. Diaoyu Chiwei islands, located to the northeast of TaiWan Island, are China’s easternmost islands. The many islands, islets, reefs and shoals on the South China Sea, known collectively as the South China Sea Islands, are subdivided into the Dongsha, Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha island groups.

Waters

Civilization starts with water, and anywhere in the world the truth holds. The same is true with China. China has more than 1,500 rivers, each draining 1,000 square kilometers or larger areas. About 2,700 billion cubic meters of water flow along these rivers, taking up 5.8 percent of the world’s total. Most of the large rivers find their sources in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and as a result, China is supposed to be rich in water-power resources.
The Huanghe River (the Yellow River) – The Huanghe River, in the hearts of the Chinese people, is the mother of China. The yellow River valley was one of the birthplaces of ancient Chinese civilization with lush pastureland and abundant mineral deposits. It is the second longest river in China, 5,464 kilometers in length, with a catchment’s area of 752,000 square kilometers, empties into the sea. The Yellow River obtained its name from the color of the mud which it carries along in its low reaches and which is the source of the sediments which in turn creates problems for the management of the river. The riverbed is getting higher and higher with the sedimentation, creating a so-called suspending river above the land. Therefore, much of the river management effort has been devoted to improving the flood prevention capability and to taming the river.

The Changjiang River (the Yangtze River)

The Changjiang River is the longest river in China, and the third longest in the world, next only to the Nile in northeast Africa and the Amazon in South America. It originates in the Oinghai Province, and is 6,300 kilometers long, flowing through nine provinces, and catching an area of 1.809 million square kilometers, reaching 19 percent of the total area of China. The middle and lower Yangtze River’s warm and humid climate, plentiful rainfall and fertile soil make the area an important agricultural region. Known as the “golden waterway”, the Yangtze is a transportation artery lying to the north of Shanghai. And the famous Three Gorges Project is being built on the Yangtze River.
The rivers in China can be categorized as exterior and interior systems with the Yangtze, Yellow, Heilongjiang, Pearl, Liaohe, Haihe, Huaihe, Lancang, Yarlungzangbo and Ertix rivers belonging to the former, taking up 64 percent of the country’s total land area, flowing into the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean or the Arctic Ocean respectively, and with 2,179-kilometer-longTarim River, the longest interior one in China, and many others belonging to the latter, taking up 36 percent of China’s total land area, flowing into inland lakes pr disappearing into deserts or salt marshes.

The Grand Canal

The Grand Canal, in addition to those endowed by nature, is a famous man-made river, running from Beijing in the north to Hangzhou in the south. The work on the Grand Canal first began as early as in the fifth century BC. It links five major rivers: the Haihe, Yellow, Huaihe, Yangtze and Qiantang rivers and passes through the city of Tianjin and four provinces: Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. With a total length of 1,801 kilometers, the Grand Canal is the longest as well as the oldest man-made waterway in the world.

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