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Hundreds of ethnic groups have existed in China throughout its history. The largest ethnic group in China by far is the Han. This group, however, is internally diverse and can be further divided into smaller ethnic groups that share similar traits.
Over the last three millennia, many previously distinct ethnic groups in China have been Sinicized into a Han identity, which over time dramatically expanded the size of the Han population. However, these assimilations were usually incomplete, and vestiges of indigenous language and culture still often remain in various regions of China. Because of this, many within the Han identity have maintained distinct linguistic and cultural traditions while still identifying as Han. Several ethnicities have also dramatically shaped Han culture, e.g. the Manchurian clothing called the qipao became the new "Chinese" fashion after the 17th century, replacing earlier Han styles of clothing such as the Hanfu. The modern term Chinese nation (Zhonghua Minzu) is now used to describe a notion of a Chinese nationality that transcends ethnic divisions.
Geography and climate of China
Geography of China- from the west to the east:
China ranges from mostly plateaus and mountains in the west to lower lands in the east. Principal rivers flow from west to east, including the Yangtze (central), the Huang He (Yellow river, north-central), and the Amur (northeast), and sometimes toward the south (including the Pearl River, Mekong River, and Brahmaputra), with most Chinese rivers emptying into the Pacific Ocean.
Geography of China- In the east:
In the east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea there are extensive and densely populated alluvial plains. On the edges of the Inner Mongolian plateau in the north, grasslands can be seen. Southern China is dominated by hills and low mountain ranges. In the central-east are the deltas of China's two major rivers, the Huang He and Yangtze River. Most of China's arable lands lie along these rivers, and they were the centers of China's major ancient civilizations. Other major rivers include the Pearl River, Mekong, Brahmaputra and Amur. Yunnan Province is considered a part of the Greater Mekong Subregion, which also includes Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
Geography in China-In the west:
In the west, the north has a great alluvial plain, and the south has a vast calcareoustableland traversed by hill ranges of moderate elevation, and the Himalayas, containing Earth's highest point, Mount Everest. The northwest also has high plateaus with more arid desert landscapes such as the Takla-Makan and the Gobi Desert, which has been expanding. During many dynasties, the southwestern border of China has been the high mountains and deep valleys of Yunnan, which separate modern China from Burma, Laos and Vietnam.
Geography of China-The general conclusion:
The Paleozoic formations of China, excepting only the upper part of the Carboniferous system, are marine, while the Mesozoic and Tertiary deposits are estuarine and freshwater, or else of terrestrial origin. Groups of volcanic cones occur in the Great Plain of north China. In the Liaodong and Shandong Peninsulas, there are basaltic plateaus.
The climate of China-The general description:
The climate of China varies greatly. The northern zone (containing Beijing) has summer daytime temperatures of more than 30 degrees Celsius and winters of Arctic severity. The central zone (containing Shanghai) has a temperatecontinental climate with very hot summers and cold winters. The southern zone (containing Guangzhou) has a subtropical climate with very hot summers and mild winters.
The climate of China-The bad phenomenon:
Due to a prolonged drought and poor agricultural practices, dust storms have become usual in the spring in China. Dust has blown to southern China and Taiwan, and has reached the West Coast of the United States. Water, erosion, and pollution control have become important issues in China's relations with other countries.
Chinese Languages
Chinese main languages- Mandarin or Putonghua
Most languages in China belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family, spoken by 29 ethnicities. There are also several major dialects within the Chinese language itself. The most spoken dialects are Mandarin or Putonghua (spoken by over 70% of the population), Wu (Shanghainese), Yue (Cantonese), Min, Xiang, Gan, and Hakka. Non-Sinitic languages spoken widely by ethnic minorities include Zhuang (Thai), Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur (Turkic), Hmong and Korean. However, our official languages is Mandarin or Putonghua.
Chinese written languages is based on Mandarin or Putonghua:
Classical Chinese was the written standard in China for thousands of years, and allowed for written communication between speakers of various unintelligible languages and dialects in China. Vernacular Chinese or baihua is the written standard based on the Mandarin dialect (Putonghua)first popularized in Ming dynasty novels, and was adopted (with significant modifications) during the early 20th century as the national vernacular. Classical Chinese is still part of the high school curriculum and is thus intelligible to some degree to many Chinese.
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The religions In china- The effects of Taoism and buddhism:
The "official" orthodox faith system held by most dynasties of China until the overthrow of the last dynasty is a panentheistic system, centering on the worship of "Heaven" or Shangdi (literally "Emperor Above") as an omnipotent force. This faith system pre-dated the development of Confucianism and Taoism and the introduction of Buddhism and Christianity. It has features of a monotheism in that Heaven is seen as an omnipotent entity, endowed with personality but no corporeal form. Worship of Heaven includes the erection of shrines, the last and greatest being the Altar of Heaven in Beijing, and the offering of prayers. Manifestation of the powers of Heaven include weather and natural disasters. Although its popularity gradually diminished after the advent of Taoism and Buddhism, among other religions, some of its concepts remained in use throughout the pre-modern period and have been incorporated in later religions of China.
The religions in china- Taoism:
Taoism is an indigenous religion of China and its beginnings are traditionally traced to the composition of Lao Zi's Tao Te Ching (The Book of Tao and Its Virtues) or to seminal works by Zhang Daoling. The philosophy of Taoism is centered on "the way"; an understanding of which can be likened to recognizing the true nature of the universe. Taoism in its unorganized form is also considered a folk religion of China. More secular derivatives of Taoist ideas include Feng Shui, Sun Tzu's Art of War, and acupuncture.
The religions in China- Buddhism:
Buddhism was introduced from India and Central Asia during the Han dynasty and became very popular among Chinese of all walks of life, embraced particularly by commoners, and sponsored by emperors in certain dynasties. Mahayana (大乘, Dacheng) is the predominant form of Buddhism practiced in China, where it was largely Sinicized and later exported to Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Some subsets of Mahayana popular in China include Pure Land (Amidism) and Zen. Buddhism is the largest organized faith in China and the country has the most Buddhist adherents in the world. Many Chinese, however, identify themselves as both Taoist and Buddhist at the same time.
The religions in China-The traditional worship:
Ancestor worship is a major religious theme shared among all Chinese religions. Traditional Chinese culture, Taoism, Confucianism, and Chinese Buddhism all value filial piety, or a love and respect for one's parents and ancestors, as one of the most important virtues. Chinese people generally offer prayers and food for their ancestors, light incense and candles, and burn offerings of Joss paper. These activities are typically conducted at the site of ancestral graves or tombs, at an ancestral temple, or at a household shrine.
The religions in China-The beginning of Islam:
Islam was introduced to China by a mission in 651, eighteen years after Muhammad's death. Muslims came to China for trade, dominating the import/export industry during the Song Dynasty.They became influential in government circles, including Zheng He, the general Lan Yu and Yeheidie'erding, the designer of the Yuan Dynasty's capital, Khanbaliq. Nanjing became an important center of Islamic study. The Qing Dynasty waged war and genocide against Muslims in the Dungan revolt and Panthay rebellion.
The religions in China-The development of Christianity:
Christianity has developed in China since at least the 7th century AD with the introduction of the Assyrian Church of the East. Christianity began to make significant inroads in China after the 16th century through Jesuit and later Protestantmissionaries. The Taiping Rebellion was influenced to some degree by Christian teachings, and the Boxer Rebellion was in part a reaction against Christianity in China.
The religions in China-Jews:
In the first half of the 20th century, many Jews arrived in Shanghai and Hong Kong during those cities' periods of economic expansion, seeking refuge from the Holocaust in Europe. Shanghai was particularly notable for its volume of Jewish refugees, as it was the only port in the world then to accept them without an entry visa.
An illustration published in Wang Zhen's (fl. 1290–1333) book of 1313 AD showing movable type characters arranged by rhyme scheme in round table compartments
Although it is recorded that the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) court eunuch Cai Lun (c. 50–121 AD) invented the papermaking process and established the use of new raw materials used in making paper, ancient padding and wrapping paper artifacts dating to the 2nd century BC have been found in China, the oldest example of paper being a map from Fangmatan, Tianshui;by the 3rd century, paper as a writing medium was in widespread use, replacing traditional but more expensive writing mediums such as strips of bamboo rolled in to threaded scrolls, scrolls and strips of silk, wet clay tablets hardened later in a furnace, and wooden tablets .
In the papermaking process established by Cai in 105, a boiled mixture of mulberry tree bark, hemp, old linens, and fish nets created a pulp that was pounded into paste and stirred with water; a wooden frame sieve with a mat of sewn reeds was then dunked into the mixture, which was then shaken and then dried into sheets of paper that were bleached under the exposure of sunlight; K.S. Tom says this process was gradually improved through leaching, polishing and glazing to produce a smooth, strong paper.
Woodblock printing: The earliest confirmed specimen of woodblock printing is a miniature dharani Buddhist sutra bearing extinct Chinese writing characters used only during the reign of China's only self-ruling empress, Wu Zetian (r. 690–705), dated no earlier than 704 and preserved in a Silla Korean temple stupa built in 751. However, the earliest known book printed at regular size is the Diamond Sutra made during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), a 5.18 m (17 ft) long scroll which bears the date 868 AD, or the "fifteenth day of the fourth moon of the ninth year" of Emperor Yizong's rule (859–873). Joseph Needham and Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin write that the cutting and printing techniques used for the delicate calligraphy of the Diamond Sutra book are much more advanced and refined than the miniature dharani sutra printed earlier. The two oldest Chinese calendars printed have been found in the Buddhist pilgrimage site at Dunhuang, dated 877 and 882; Patricia Ebrey writes that it is no surprise that some of the earliest printed items were calendars, since the Chinese found it necessary to calculate and mark which days were auspicious and which were not. Movable type: The polymath scientist and official Shen Kuo (1031–1095) of the Song Dynasty (960–1279) was the first to describe the process of movable type printing in his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, attributing this innovation to a little-known artisan named Bi Sheng (990–1051). With the use of fired clay characters, Shen described Bi's technical process of making the type, type-setting, printing, and breaking up the type for further use. Bi had experimented with wooden type characters, but their use was not perfected until 1297 to 1298 with the model of the official Wang Zhen (fl. 1290–1333) of the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), who also arranged written characters by rhyme scheme on the surface of round table compartments. It was not until 1490 with the printed works of Hua Sui (1439–1513) of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) that the Chinese perfected metal movable type characters, namely bronze. The Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) scholar Xu Zhiding of Tai'an, Shandong developed vitreous enamel movable type printing in 1718.
Effects on bookbinding: The advent of printing in the 9th century revolutionized bookbinding, as late Tang Dynasty paper books evolved from rolled scrolls of paper into folded leaves like a pamphlet, which developed further in the Song Dynasty (960–1279) into 'butterfly' bindings with leaves of paper folded down the center like a common book, then during the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) wrapped back bindings had two edges of the leaves attached to the spine and secured with a stiff paper cover on the back, and during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) books finally had thread-stitched bindings in the back. It was not until the early 20th century that traditional Chinese thread-stitched bookbinding was replaced by Western-style bookbinding, a parallel to the replacement of traditional Chinese print methods with the modern printing press, in the tradition of Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400–1468).
Although evidence of gunpowder's first use in China comes from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907–960), the earliest known recorded recipes for gunpowder were written by Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and Yang Weide in the Wujing Zongyao military manuscript compiled in 1044 during the Song Dynasty (960–1279); the gunpowder formulas described were used in incendiary bombs lobbed from catapults, thrown down from defensive walls, or lowered down the wall by use of iron chains operated by a swape lever; bombs launched from trebuchet catapults mounted on forecastles of naval ships ensured the victory of Song over Jin forces at the Battle of Caishi in 1161, while the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) used gunpowder bombs during their failed invasion of Japan in 1274 and 1281; during the 13th and 14th centuries, gunpowder formulas became more potent (with nitrate levels of up to 91%) and gunpowder weaponry more advanced and deadly, as evidenced in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) military manuscript Huolongjing compiled by Jiao Yu (fl. 14th to early 15th century) and Liu Ji (1311–1375), completed sometime before the latter's death with a preface added by the former in a 1412 Nanyang publication of the work.
In San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, Veracruz, Mexico, an ancient hematite artifact from the Olmec era dating roughly 1000 BC indicates the possible use of the lodestone compass in Central America long before it was described in China, yet the Olmecs did not have iron which the Chinese would discover could be magnetized by contact with lodestone. The Chinese by the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) began using north-south oriented lodestone ladle-and-bowl shaped compasses for divination and geomancy and not yet for navigation; the polymath official and inventor Shen Kuo (1031–1095) of the Song Dynasty (960–1279) was the first to accurately describe both magnetic declination and the magnetic needle compass in his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, while the author Zhu Yu (fl. 12th century) was the first to mention use of the compass specifically for navigation at sea in his book published in 1119.Even before this, however, the Wujing Zongyao military manuscript compiled by 1044 described a thermoremanence compass of heated iron or steel shaped as a fish and placed in a bowl of water which produced a weak magnetic force; the Wujing Zongyao recorded that it was used as a pathfinder along with the South Pointing Chariot.
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