People's Republic of China
Asia Oriental
Ancient · Dynamic · Vast
China invented paper, printing, gunpowder, and the compass — four innovations that transformed the ancient world.
Más allá de la capital, las principales ciudades son Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen — cada una un centro de cultura regional, economía e historia. Beijing accumulated 700 years of imperial grandeur into the Forbidden City — a 980-building complex housing 1.8 million artefacts — while simultaneously bulldozing its ancient hutong courtyard neighbourhoods to build Olympic infrastructure, creating a city where the world's largest surviving palace complex coexists with some of its newest glass towers.
El idioma oficial es Mandarin, que refleja el patrimonio cultural del país y lo conecta con una amplia comunidad internacional. Internacionalmente, China se contacta mediante el código +86. China's 56 officially recognised ethnic groups are dominated by Han Chinese (91%), but the Tibetan, Uyghur, Zhuang, and Mongolian minorities maintain distinct languages and cultural practices across a geographic and cultural diversity that the unifying concept of 'Chinese civilisation' spanning 5,000 years both connects and obscures.
China comparte sus fronteras con Hong Kong, Nepal, Kazajistán, Bután, Laos, Tayikistán, Afganistán, Pakistán y 8 países más. El tráfico rodado circula por la derecha, en consonancia con la convención de
La vida económica y cotidiana se rige por la zona horaria de UTC+08:00, alineando el país con sus vecinos regionales.
Chinese cuisine's regional variations are so profound they barely share ingredients — Sichuan's numbing peppercorns and chilli oil, Cantonese dim sum's delicacy, Beijing's roasted duck, Shanghainese braised pork belly, and Xinjiang's lamb skewers reflect climates, trade routes, and agricultural histories as different as Europe's distinct national cuisines.
Table tennis became China's unofficial national sport in 1961 when Zhuang Zedong won the first of three world titles — a sport promoted by Mao as a vehicle for national pride that produced a dominance so complete that China has won 60 of 69 possible Olympic gold medals since the sport's introduction in 1988.
Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province — the inspiration for the floating Hallelujah Mountains in Avatar — features thousands of sandstone pillars rising up to 300 metres through cloud and mist, a landscape created over 300 million years of geological erosion and now protected as the first national forest park established in China in 1982.