Geography

The expansive territory of China comprises several diverse geographic regions and borders fourteen neighboring countries: from the fertile agricultural plains in the east, bordering the South China Sea; to the forested mountains in the northeast, the historical region of Manchuria bordering Russia and North Korea; to the semiarid loess-covered plateau and the high-elevation grasslands in the north, bordering Mongolia; to the arid deserts in the northwest, bordering Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan; to the snowcapped Himalayas of the Tibetan Plateau in the west, bordering India, Nepal and Bhutan; to the lush tropics in the southwest, bordering Myanmar and Laos; to the fantastic karst topography in the south, bordering Vietnam.



Please click the above image of Mount Emei to open a Power Point presentation of Chinese Mountains (3.44 MB file size)

The immense size of China and its variety of geographic zones means when the sun is rising over the urban landscape of Shanghai in eastern China, the desert oasis of Kashgar in the far west is still in darkness, and in January when the spectacular Ha'erbin ice sculpture festival is celebrated in the north, the southern beaches of Hainan Island are still sunny and warm.

These different regions of China have developed at varied rates and there is significant economic disparity between urban and rural areas throughout China. Generally speaking, western China is the least economically developed region, and while many aspects of village life throughout China have changed little over the last century, the capital and many of the large urban centers along the coast, like Shanghai and Hong Kong, are some of the fastest growing and most prosperous multinational cities in the Asian Pacific region.

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