GEOGRAPHY

General overview

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is located in Central and East Asia, bounded on the east by the Yellow, East China, South China seas and the Korea Bay. The island of Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China and is separated from the mainland by the Taiwan Strait.

The PRC includes territories from the Pamir to Shanghai (west to east) and from the Amur River to the southernmost tip of Hainan Island (north to south), including Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang (East Turkestan), Manchuria and Tibet. The Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions have separate administrative divisions. Taiwan Province, officially considered a part of China, has not been controlled by the Chinese authorities since 1949. The total area of the country is approximately 9.6 million square km.

The length of the coastline is 14.5 thousand km. The terrain is diverse, with hills, plateaus, low mountain ranges, depressions, deserts, and vast plains. There are three geographical areas: the Tibetan Plateau in the south-west; mountain belt and high plains in the north; low-lying depositional plains in the northeast, east and south.

The country has extensive mineral reserves. It produces antimony, graphite, tungsten and zinc. Deposits of coal, iron ore, petroleum, natural gas, mercury, tin, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminum, lead, and uranium are being developed in the regions. China is the first in the world in terms of tin and tungsten reserves.

National borders

The total length of China's land borders is 22,117 km.

The country borders 14 countries:

Russia (40 km on the northwest and 3,605 km on the northeast),
Mongolia (4,677 km);
North Korea (1,416 km);
Vietnam (1,281 km);
Laos (423 km);
Myanmar (2,185 km);
India (3,903 km);
Bhutan (470 km);
Nepal (1,236 km);
Pakistan (523 km);
Afghanistan (76 km);
Tajikistan (414 km);
Kyrgyzstan (858 km);
Kazakhstan (1,533 km).

Climate

Climate in China is diverse – subtropical in the southeast and sharply continental in the north-west. On the south coast, the weather is determined by the monsoon winds. Seasonal air movements and associated winds contain a large amount of moisture in summer, and are dry in winter. Differences in latitude, longitude, and altitude in China determine the variety of temperature and meteorological conditions.

There is a substantial temperature difference between the regions in the winter months, but the difference decreases in summer. In the northern part of the country, temperatures in January can drop to -30 °C, with average temperatures around 0 °C. The average July temperature in this area is +20 °C. In the southern parts of the country, the average temperature ranges from +10 °C in January to +28 °C in July.