1.
Counties of the People's Republic of China
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There are 1,464 counties in Mainland China out of a total of 2,862 county-level divisions. Xian have existed since the Warring States period, and were established nationwide during the Qin Dynasty, the term xian is usually translated as districts or prefectures when put in the context of Chinese history. This article, however, will try to keep the terminology consistent with the modern translation, xian have existed since the Warring States period and were set up nationwide by the Qin Dynasty. The number of counties in China proper gradually increased from dynasty to dynasty, as Qin Shi Huang reorganized the counties after his unification, there were about 1,000. Under the Eastern Han Dynasty, the number of counties increased to above 1,000, about 1400 existed when the Sui dynasty abolished the commandery level, which was the level just above counties, and demoted some commanderies to counties. The current number of counties mostly resembled that of the years of Qing Dynasty. Changes of location and names of counties in Chinese history have been a field of research in Chinese historical geography. Government below the county level was often undertaken through informal non-bureaucratic means, the head of a county was the magistrate, who oversaw both the day-to-day operations of the county as well as civil and criminal cases. Autonomous counties are a class of counties in Mainland China reserved for non-Han Chinese ethnic minorities. Autonomous counties are all over China, and are given, by law. There are 117 autonomous counties in Mainland China, as the Communist Party of China is central to directing government policy in Mainland China, every level of administrative division has a local CPC Committee. A countys is called the CPC County Committee and the called the Secretary. Policies are carried out via the Peoples government of the county, the governor is often also one of the deputy secretaries in the CPC Committee. County List of counties in the Peoples Republic of China List of county-level divisions of China History of the divisions of China
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
4.
Provinces of China
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Provinces, formally provincial-level administrative divisions or first-level administrative divisions, are the highest-level Chinese administrative divisions. There are 34 such divisions, classified as 23 provinces, four municipalities, five autonomous regions, the Peoples Republic of China claims sovereignty over the territory administered by the Republic of China, claiming most of it as its Taiwan Province. The ROC also administers some offshore islands which form Fujian Province and these were part of an originally unified Fujian province, which since the stalemate of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 has been divided between the PRC and ROC. Note that every province has a Communist Party of China provincial committee, the committee secretary is in effective charge of the province, rather than the nominal governor of the provincial government. The government of each province is nominally led by a provincial committee. The committee secretary is first-in-charge of the province, second-in-command is the governor of the provincial government, the Peoples Republic of China claims the island of Taiwan and its surrounding islets, including Penghu, as Taiwan Province. The territory is controlled by the Republic of China, a municipality or direct-controlled municipality is a higher level of city which is directly under the Chinese government, with status equal to that of the provinces. In practice, their status is higher than that of common provinces. The governor of each region is usually appointed from the respective minority ethnic group. A special administrative region is an autonomous and self-governing subnational subject of the Peoples Republic of China that is directly under the Central Peoples Government. Each SAR has an executive as head of the region. The regions government is not fully independent, as policy and military defence are the responsibility of the central government. Notes,1, as of 20102, per km23, km24, Abbreviation in the parentheses is informal 5, Since founding in 1949, however, the PRC has never controlled Taiwan. Taiwan currently administers Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, the subject of whether or not Taiwan is part of China is often debated, with no clear conclusion. The Ming Dynasty kept the system set up by the Yuan Dynasty, however. By the time of the establishment of the Qing Dynasty in 1644 there were 18 provinces, in addition, there was a zongdu, a general military inspector or governor general, for every two to three provinces. Outer regions of China were not divided into provinces, military leaders or generals oversaw Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, while vice-dutong and civilian leaders headed the leagues, a subdivision of Mongolia. The ambans supervised the administration of Tibet, in 1884 Xinjiang became a province, in 1907 Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang were made provinces as well
5.
Zhejiang
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Zhejiang, formerly romanized as Chekiang, is an eastern coastal province of China. The provinces name derives from the Zhe River, the name of the Qiantang River which flows past Hangzhou. Kuahuqiao culture was a neolithic culture that flourished in Hangzhou area in 6. Zhejiang was the site of the Neolithic cultures of the Hemudu, the area of modern Zhejiang was outside the major sphere of influence of the Shang civilization during the second millennium BC. Instead, this area was populated by peoples known as Dongyue. The kingdom of Yue began to appear in the chronicles and records written during the Spring, according to the chronicles, the kingdom of Yue was in northern Zhejiang. Shiji claims that its leaders were descended from the Shang founder Yu the Great, the Song of the Yue Boatman was transliterated into Chinese and recorded by authors in north China or inland China of Hebei and Henan around 528 BC. The song shows that the Yue people spoke a language that was mutually unintelligible with the dialects spoken in north, the Sword of Goujian bears bird-worm seal script. Yuenü was a swordswoman from the state of Yue, to check the growth of the kingdom of Wu, Chu pursued a policy of strengthening Yue. Under King Goujian, Yue recovered from its early reverses and fully annexed the lands of its rival in 473 BC, the Yue kings then moved their capital center from their original home around Mount Kuaiji in present-day Shaoxing to the former Wu capital at present-day Suzhou. With no southern power to turn against Yue, Chu opposed it directly and, in 333 BC, yues former lands were annexed by the Qin Empire in 222 BC and organized into a commandery named for Kuaiji in Zhejiang but initially headquartered in Wu in Jiangsu. Kuaiji Commandery was the power base for Xiang Liang and Xiang Yus rebellion against the Qin Empire which initially succeeded in restoring the kingdom of Chu. At the beginning of the Three Kingdoms era, Zhejiang was home to the warlords Yan Baihu and Wang Lang prior to their defeat by Sun Ce and Sun Quan, who eventually established the Kingdom of Wu. Despite the removal of their court from Kuaiji to Jianye, they continued development of the region, industrial kilns were established and trade reached as far as Manchuria and Funan. Zhejiang was part of the Wu during the Three Kingdoms, Wu, commonly known as Eastern Wu or Sun Wu, had been the economically most developed state among the Three Kingdoms. The historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms records that Zhejiang had the best-equipped, the story depicts how the states of Wei and Shu, lack of material resources, avoided direct confrontation with the Wu. In armed military conflicts with Wu, the two states relied intensively on tactics of camouflage and deception to steal Wus military resources including arrows and bows, the other two centers in the south were Jiankang and Chengdu. In 589, Qiantang was raised in status and renamed Hangzhou, some may have lost social privilege, and took refugee in areas south to Yangtze River
6.
Demonym
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A demonym is a word that identifies residents or natives of a particular place, which is derived from the name of that particular place. It is a neologism, previously gentilic was recorded in English dictionaries, e. g. the Oxford English Dictionary, thus a Thai may be any resident or citizen of Thailand, of any ethnic group, or more narrowly a member of the Thai people. Conversely, some groups of people may be associated with multiple demonyms, for example, a native of the United Kingdom may be called a British person, a Brit, or a Briton. In some languages, when a parallel demonym does not exist, in English, demonyms are capitalized and are often the same as the adjectival form of the place, e. g. Egyptian, Japanese, or Greek. Significant exceptions exist, for instance the adjectival form of Spain is Spanish, English widely includes country-level demonyms such as Ethiopian or Guatemalan and more local demonyms such as Seoulite, Wisconsinite, Chicagoan, Michigander, Fluminense, and Paulista. Some places lack a commonly used and accepted demonym and this poses a particular challenge to those toponymists who research demonyms. The word gentilic comes from the Latin gentilis and the English suffix -ic, the word demonym was derived from the Greek word meaning populace with the suffix for name. National Geographic attributes the term demonym to Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson in a recent work from 1990 and it was subsequently popularized in this sense in 1997 by Dickson in his book Labels for Locals. However, in What Do You Call a Person From, a Dictionary of Resident Names attributed the term to George H. Scheetz, in his Names Names, A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon, which is apparently where the term first appears. Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the English language, the most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. Cairo → Cairene Cyrenaica → Cyrene Damascus → Damascene Greece → Greek Nazareth → Nazarene Slovenia → Slovene Often used for Middle Eastern locations and European locations. Kingston-upon-Hull → Hullensian Leeds → Leodensian Spain → Spaniard Savoy → Savoyard -ese is usually considered proper only as an adjective, thus, a Chinese person is used rather than a Chinese. Monaco → Monégasque Menton → Mentonasque Basque Country → Basque Often used for French locations, mostly they are from Africa and the Pacific, and are not generally known or used outside the country concerned. In much of East Africa, a person of an ethnic group will be denoted by a prefix. For example, a person of the Luba people would be a Muluba, the plural form Baluba, similar patterns with minor variations in the prefixes exist throughout on a tribal level. And Fijians who are indigenous Fijians are known as Kaiviti and these demonyms are usually more informal and colloquial. In the United States such informal demonyms frequently become associated with mascots of the sports teams of the state university system. In other countries the origins are often disputed and these will typically be formed using the standard models above
7.
Time in China
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The time in China follows a single standard time offset of UTC+08,00, despite China spanning five geographical time zones. The official national standard time is called Beijing Time domestically and China Standard Time internationally, daylight saving time has not been observed since 1991. The special administrative regions maintain their own authorities, with standards called Hong Kong Time. These have been equivalent to Beijing time since 1992, in addition, a second time standard is used in Xinjiang, two hours less than the Beijing Time, which is called Ürümqi Time or Xinjiang Time. In 1912, the Republic of China established five standard time zones, namely Kunlun, Sinkiang-Tibet, Kansu-Szechwan, Chungyuan, and Changpai. The unified time zone policy was adopted by the Communist Party of China or the Central People’s Government some time between 27 September 1949 and 6 October 1949, the date is unknown. However, recent research suggests that the policy was most likely adopted on 27 September 1949, daylight saving time was observed from 1986 to 1991. In 1997 and 1999, Hong Kong and Macau were transferred to China from the United Kingdom and Portugal, although the sovereignty of the SARs belongs to China, they retain their own policies regarding time zones for historical reasons. Due to their locations, both are within the UTC+08,00 time zone, which is the same as the national standard — Beijing time. Xinjiang Time, also known as Ürümqi Time, is set due to its location in the westernmost part of the country. The time offset is UTC+06,00, which is two hours behind Beijing, and is shared with neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Currently, timezone usage within Xinjiang is roughly split along the divide, with most ethnic Han following Beijing time. Some local authorities are now using both time standard side by side, the coexistence of two timezones within the same region causes some confusion among the local population, especially when inter-racial communication occur. Some ethnic Han in Xinjiang might not be aware of the existence of the UTC+6 Xinjiang Time because of language barrier, regardless, Beijing Time users in Xinjiang usually schedule their daily activities two hours later than those who live in eastern China. As such, stores and offices in Xinjiang are commonly opening from 10am to 7pm Beijing Time and this is known as the work/rest time in Xinjiang. Hong Kong maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1997, the Hong Kong Time is UTC+08,00 all year round, and daylight saving time has not been used since 1979. Greenwich Mean Time was adopted as the basis in 1904, before that, local time was determined by astronomical observations at Hong Kong Observatory using a 6-inch Lee Equatorial and a 3-inch Transit Circle. Macau maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1999, the Macau Standard Time is the time in Macau
8.
Gross domestic product
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Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
9.
Renminbi
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The renminbi /ˌrɛnmɪnˈbiː/ is the official currency of the Peoples Republic of China. The yuan is the unit of the renminbi, but is also used to refer to the Chinese currency in general. The distinction between the terms renminbi and yuan is similar to that between sterling and pound, which refer to the British currency and its primary unit. One yuan is subdivided into 10 jiao, and a jiao in turn is subdivided into 10 fen, the ISO code for renminbi is CNY, or also CNH when traded in off-shore markets such as Hong Kong. The currency is often abbreviated RMB, or indicated by the yuan sign ¥, in Chinese texts the currency may also be indicated with the Chinese character for the yuan, 圆. The renminbi is legal tender in mainland China, but not in Hong Kong or Macau, renminbi is sometimes accepted in Hong Kong and Macau, and are easily exchanged in the two territories, with banks in Hong Kong allowing people to maintain accounts in RMB. The currency is issued by the Peoples Bank of China, the authority of China. Until 2005, the value of the renminbi was pegged to the US dollar and it has previously been claimed that the renminbis official exchange rate was undervalued by as much as 37. 5% against its purchasing power parity. Since 2006, the exchange rate has been allowed to float in a narrow margin around a fixed base rate determined with reference to a basket of world currencies. The Chinese government has announced that it gradually increase the flexibility of the exchange rate. As a result of the rapid internationalization of the renminbi, it became the worlds 8th most traded currency in 2013, and 5th in 2015. On 1 October 2016, the RMB became the first emerging market currency to be included in the IMFs special drawing rights basket, a variety of currencies circulated in China during the Republic of China era, most of which were denominated in the unit yuán. Each was distinguished by a name, such as the fabi, the gold yuan. During the era of the economy, the value of the renminbi was set to unrealistic values in exchange with western currency. The unrealistic levels at which exchange rates were pegged led to a black market in currency transactions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, China worked to make the RMB more convertible, through the use of swap centres, the exchange rate was brought to realistic levels and the dual track currency system was abolished. As of 2013, the renminbi is convertible on current accounts, the ultimate goal has been to make the RMB fully convertible. From 1949 until the late 1970s, the state fixed Chinas exchange rate at a highly overvalued level as part of the countrys import -substitution strategy
10.
Vehicle registration plates of China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China issues vehicles licence plates at its Vehicle Management Offices, under the administration of the Ministry of Public Security. Hong Kong and Macau have their own administrations on licence plates, Vehicles from Hong Kong and Macau are required to apply for licence plates, usually from Guangdong, to travel on roads in Mainland China. Vehicles from Mainland China have to apply for Hong Kong or Macau licence plates to enter those territories, taiwan, on the other hand, also has plates administered by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in the Republic of China. The number of registered cars, buses, vans, and trucks on the road in China reached 62 million in 2009, and is expected to exceed 200 million by 2020. The font used on the plates were said to be modified from the East Asian gothic typeface, the current plates are of the 1992 standard, which consist of the one-character provincial abbreviation, a letter of the alphabet, and five numbers or letters of the alphabet. Previously, all plates had used the five-number designation. As the number of motor vehicles grew, however, the number had to exceed what was the maximum previously allowable—90,000 or 100,000 vehicles, therefore, there had become a need to insert Latin letters into the license plate to increase the number of possible combinations. This was first done in the cities with only one prefix. Nanjing, for example, began the change only the first number. Further changes allowed the first two places, or the place alone on the plate to be letters, allowing 792,000 more combinations mathematically. More recently, cities have taken to having the letter alone being a Latin letter. The numbers are produced at random, and are computer-generated at the issuing office, numbers with a sequence of 6s, 8s, or 9s are usually considered to be lucky, therefore special sequences like 88888 or 86888 can be purchased. The older black plates are issued to those who are dual-use vehicles. Licence plates for Chinas Police Service, Armed Police Force, and Military are in a background, with red. Police Service plates have a format of X·LLNNN警. These plates are issued to police, some patrol vehicles, court. Chinese Peoples Armed Police Force uses the pinyin wujing abbreviation WJ, the first two small letters behind the WJ are area prefixes, WJ01-NNNNN. = Hainan The Alphabet Numeral behind the area shows the section of the Armed police
11.
Varieties of Chinese
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Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local language varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. The differences are similar to those within the Romance languages, with particularly strong in the more rugged southeast. These varieties, often called dialects, have been classified into seven to ten groups, the largest being Mandarin, Wu, Min, Chinese varieties differ most in their phonology, and to a lesser extent in vocabulary and syntax. Southern varieties tend to have fewer initial consonants than northern and central varieties, all have phonemic tones, with northern varieties tending to have fewer distinctions than southern ones. Many have tone sandhi, with the most complex patterns in the area from Zhejiang to eastern Guangdong. Standard Chinese takes its phonology from the Beijing dialect, with vocabulary from the Mandarin group and it is the sole official language of both China and Taiwan, one of the four official languages of Singapore, and one of the six official languages of the United Nations. At the end of the 2nd millennium BC, a form of Chinese was spoken in an area around the lower Wei River. From there it expanded eastwards across the North China Plain to Shandong and then south into the valley of the Yangtze River, as the language spread, it replaced formerly dominant languages in those areas, and regional differences grew. Simultaneously, especially in periods of unity, there was a tendency to promote a central standard to facilitate communication between people from different regions. The first evidence of variation is found in texts from the Spring. At that time, the Zhou royal domain, though no longer politically powerful, the Fangyan is devoted to differences in vocabulary between regions. Commentaries from the Eastern Han period contain much discussion of local variations in pronunciation, the Qieyun rhyme book noted wide variation in pronunciation between regions, and set out to define a standard pronunciation for reading the classics. This standard, known as Middle Chinese, is believed to be a based on the reading traditions of northern and southern capitals. The North China Plain provided few barriers to migration, leading to relative linguistic homogeneity over an area in northern China. In contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have spawned the other six major groups of Chinese languages, with great internal diversity, until the mid-20th century, most Chinese people spoke only their local language. As a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the using a common language based on Mandarin varieties. Knowledge of this language was thus essential for an official career, in the early years of the Republic of China, Literary Chinese was replaced as the written standard by written vernacular Chinese, which was based on northern dialects. In the 1930s a standard language was adopted, with its pronunciation based on the Beijing dialect
12.
Cinnamomum camphora
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Cinnamomum camphora is a large evergreen tree that grows up to 20–30 m tall. The leaves have a glossy, waxy appearance and smell of camphor when crushed, in spring, it produces bright green foliage with masses of small white flowers. It produces clusters of black, berry-like fruit around 1 cm in diameter and its pale bark is very rough and fissured vertically. Cinnamomum camphora is native to China south of the Yangtze River, Taiwan, southern Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, and has been introduced to many other countries. In Japan, where the tree is called kusunoki, five camphor trees are known with a circumference above 20 m, with the largest individual, Kamō no Ōkusu. Camphor laurel contains volatile compounds in all plant parts. Camphor laurel has six different chemical variants called chemotypes, which are camphor, linalool,1, 8-cineole, nerolidol, safrole, in China, field workers avoid mixing chemotypes when harvesting by their odour. The cineole fraction of camphor laurel is used in China to manufacture fake Eucalyptus oil, the chemical variants seem dependent upon the country of origin of the tree. The tree is native to China, Japan, and Taiwan and it has been introduced to the other countries where it has been found, and the chemical variants are identifiable by country. E. g. C. camphora grown in Taiwan and Japan is normally high in linalool. In India and Sri Lanka, the high camphor variety/chemotype remains dominant, C. camphora grown in Madagascar, though, is high in 1,8 cineole. The essential oil from the Madagascar trees is known as ravintsara. Camphor is a crystalline substance, obtained from the tree C. camphora. Camphor has been used for centuries as a culinary spice, a component of incense. It is also an insect repellent and a flea-killing substance, C. camphora is native to Jeju off the coast of Korea, Taiwan, southern Japan, southeast China, and Indochina, where it is also cultivated for camphor and timber production. The production and shipment of camphor, in a solid, waxy form, was an industry in Taiwan prior to. It was used medicinally and was also an important ingredient in the production of smokeless gunpowder, primitive stills were set up in the mountainous areas in which the tree is usually found. The wood was chipped, these chips were steamed in a retort, allowing the camphor to crystallize on the inside of a crystallization box and it was then scraped off and packed out to government-run factories for processing and sale
13.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
14.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
15.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
16.
Prefecture-level city
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Prefectural level cities form the second level of the administrative structure. Administrative chiefs of prefectural level cities generally have the rank as a division chief of a national ministry. Since the 1980s, most former prefectures have been renamed into prefectural level cities, a prefectural level city is a city and prefecture that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. The larger prefectural level cities span over 100 kilometres, prefectural level cities nearly always contain multiple counties, county level cities, and other such sub-divisions. To distinguish a prefectural level city from its urban area. The first prefectural level cities were created on 5 November 1983, over the following two decades, prefectural level cities have come to replace the vast majority of Chinese prefectures, the process is still ongoing. Most provinces are composed entirely or nearly entirely of prefectural level cities, shijiazhuang and Zhengzhou are the largest prefectural level cities with populations approaching or exceeding some sub-provincial cities. A sub-prefecture-level city is a city with powers approaching those of prefectural level cities. There are total of three classification of prefecture-level city, Regular prefectural level city which consist of counties, county level cities, consolidated district-governed prefectural level city which only consist of districts as it subdivisions. Thus, Bloomington, Indiana is indicated on the map by a point, which is distinct from, and enclosed by, in China, however, large cities such as City of Xianning may, in reality, contain both urban and rural elements. Moreover, they may enclose counties or other cities, on a less detailed map, City of Xianning would be indicated by a point, more or less corresponding to the coordinates of its city government. Other populous areas may also be exhibited as points, such as County of Tongshan, with no indication that County of Tongshan is, in fact, enclosed by City of Xianning. On a more detailed map, City of Xianning would be drawn as an area, similar to a county of the United States and this convention may lead to difficulty in the identification of places mentioned in older sources. For example, Guo Moruo writes that he was born in Town of Shawan, within Prefecture of Leshan, and attended primary school in Town of Jiading. A modern map is unlikely to show either town, Shawan, because it is too small, and Jiading, because it is the seat of City of Leshan, and is therefore indicated on the map by a point labelled Leshan. A more detailed map would show Shawan as a district within City of Leshan, statistics of China such as population and industrial activity are generally reported along prefectural city lines. Thus, the relatively unknown City of Huangshi has 2.5 million residents, more than most European capitals, but upon closer inspection, furthermore, Huangshi contains several other cities, such as City of Daye. If a person wished to calculate the population of the area of Huangshi, and had a map of Huangshi, and a table of its population by district
17.
Wenzhou
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Wenzhou is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province in the Peoples Republic of China. Wenzhou is located at the south east of Zhejiang Province with its borders connecting to Lishui on the west, Taizhou on the north. It is surrounded by mountains, the East China Sea, and 436 islands, while its lowlands are almost entirely along its East China Sea coast, most of Wenzhous area is mountainous as almost 76 percent of its 11, 784-square-kilometre surface area is classified as mountains and hills. It is said that Wenzhou has 7/10 mountains, 1/10 water, Wenzhou, which translates to a mild and pleasant land, derives its name from its climate, as it is neither extremely hot in summer nor extremely cold in the winter. Originally known as Yongjia, Yung-chia or Yungkia, Wenzhou was a prosperous treaty port. Wenzhou people make up a number of ethnic Chinese residents of Italy, France. Wenzhou has a history which goes back to about 2500 BC, when it became known for its production as one of the cities of origin of celadon in ancient China. Around 760AD in Tang Dynasty, the founding emperor Emperor Gaozu of Tang named Yongkia by its current name Wenzhou because of its mild weather, throughout its history, Wenzhous traditional economic role has been as a port giving access to the mountainous interior of southern Zhejiang Province. In early European sources, the name Wenzhou-Fu or -Foo was often transcribed Ouen-tcheou-fou after the accounts of French-speaking missionaries, in 1876, Wenzhou was opened for tea exports, but no foreign settlement was ever established there. Between 1937 and 1942, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Wenzhou achieved importance as one of the few ports still under Chinese control and it declined in the later years of the war, but began to recover after coastal trade along the Zhejiang coast was re-established in 1955. When Guo Pu climbed to the top of West Guo Mountain in Wenzhou, he saw the range of mountains of Wenzhou together shaped as dipper and the city itself aside from mountains shaped as key. Therefore, Wenzhou is now nicknamed as the dipper city based on the popular geographical saying of the city mountains as dipper. Legends have it that during the time when Wenzhou was being established and developed, today, the Deer City District is the name of downtown Wenzhou and White Deer theater located at downtown is the most popular theater among the locals. Wenzhou is the city in China designed by the founder of Fengshui philosophical system Guo Pu. Nowadays, the local Wenzhounese people usually see Guo Pu as the architect, in 2003, the local Wenzhou government built and put up a statue of Guo Pu in downtown Wenzhou. Being the only city in China and the world designed by the pioneer of Fengshui, Wenzhou is usually considered as the city in China with the best Feng Shui condition. Other cities in China that are considered to possess excellent Fengshui nature are Beijing, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Kunming, Hengyang. However, none of these cities is designed entirely on the basis of philosophy of Fengshui or designed by the father of Fengshui Guo Pu, moreover, Wenzhou has an enormous cultural impact and influence on the history of China
18.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
19.
South Korea
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South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC and its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Annexed into Imperial Japan in 1910, Korea was divided after its surrender in 1945, peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the worlds 10th largest defence budget. South Koreas tiger economy soared at an average of 10% for over 30 years in a period of rapid transformation called the Miracle on the Han River. A long legacy of openness and focus on innovation made it successful, today, it is the worlds fifth largest exporter with the G20s largest budget surplus and highest credit rating of any country in East Asia. It has free trade agreements with 75% of the economy and is the only G20 nation trading freely with China, the US. Since 1988, its constitution guarantees a liberal democracy with high government transparency, high personal freedoms led to the rise of a globally influential pop culture such as K-pop and K-drama, a phenomenon called the Korean Wave, known for its distinctive fashionable and trendy style. Home of the UN Green Climate Fund and GGGI, South Korea is a leader in low carbon growth, committed to helping developing countries as a major DAC. It is the third least ignorant country in the Index of Ignorance, ranking eighth highest for peaceful tolerance. It is the worlds largest spender on R&D per GDP, leading the OECD in graduates in science, the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the name for the entire territory. The new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon, in 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk. The name Daehan, which means great Han literally, derives from Samhan, however, the name Joseon was still widely used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted, there were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the part of the Korean Peninsula
20.
Thailand
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Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, formerly known as Siam, is a country at the centre of the Indochinese peninsula in Southeast Asia. With a total area of approximately 513,000 km2, Thailand is the worlds 51st-largest country and it is the 20th-most-populous country in the world, with around 66 million people. The capital and largest city is Bangkok, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and has switched between parliamentary democracy and military junta for decades, the latest coup being in May 2014 by the National Council for Peace and Order. Its capital and most populous city is Bangkok and its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India on the Andaman Sea to the southwest. The Thai economy is the worlds 20th largest by GDP at PPP and it became a newly industrialised country and a major exporter in the 1990s. Manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism are leading sectors of the economy and it is considered a middle power in the region and around the world. The country has always been called Mueang Thai by its citizens, by outsiders prior to 1949, it was usually known by the exonym Siam. The word Siam has been identified with the Sanskrit Śyāma, the names Shan and A-hom seem to be variants of the same word. The word Śyâma is possibly not its origin, but a learned, another theory is the name derives from Chinese, Ayutthaya emerged as a dominant centre in the late fourteenth century. The Chinese called this region Xian, which the Portuguese converted into Siam, the signature of King Mongkut reads SPPM Mongkut King of the Siamese, giving the name Siam official status until 24 June 1939 when it was changed to Thailand. Thailand was renamed Siam from 1945 to 11 May 1949, after which it reverted to Thailand. According to George Cœdès, the word Thai means free man in the Thai language, ratcha Anachak Thai means kingdom of Thailand or kingdom of Thai. Etymologically, its components are, ratcha, -ana- -chak, the Thai National Anthem, written by Luang Saranupraphan during the extremely patriotic 1930s, refers to the Thai nation as, prathet Thai. The first line of the anthem is, prathet thai ruam lueat nuea chat chuea thai, Thailand is the unity of Thai flesh. There is evidence of habitation in Thailand that has been dated at 40,000 years before the present. Similar to other regions in Southeast Asia, Thailand was heavily influenced by the culture and religions of India, Thailand in its earliest days was under the rule of the Khmer Empire, which had strong Hindu roots, and the influence among Thais remains even today. Voretzsch believes that Buddhism must have been flowing into Siam from India in the time of the Indian Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire, later Thailand was influenced by the south Indian Pallava dynasty and north Indian Gupta Empire. The Menam Basin was originally populated by the Mons, and the location of Dvaravati in the 7th century, the History of the Yuan mentions an embassy from the kingdom of Sukhothai in 1282
21.
Vietnam
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Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 92.7 million inhabitants as of 2016, it is the worlds 14th-most-populous country, and its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976, with Ho Chi Minh City as a historical city as well. The northern part of Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, an independent Vietnamese state was formed in 939, following a Vietnamese victory in the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War, thereafter, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified in what is known as the Vietnam War, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vietnam was then unified under a communist government but remained impoverished, in 1986, the government initiated a series of economic and political reforms which began Vietnams path towards integration into the world economy. By 2000, it had established relations with all nations. Since 2000, Vietnams economic growth rate has been among the highest in the world and its successful economic reforms resulted in its joining the World Trade Organization in 2007. It is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Vietnam remains one of the worlds four remaining one-party socialist states officially espousing communism. The name Việt Nam is a variation of Nam Việt, a name that can be traced back to the Triệu Dynasty of the 2nd century BC. The word Việt originated as a form of Bách Việt. The form Vietnam is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình, the name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Haiphong that dates to 1558. Then, as recorded, rewarded Yuenan/Vietnam as their nations name, to also show that they are below the region of Baiyue/Bach Viet. Between 1804 and 1813, the name was used officially by Emperor Gia Long and it was revived in the early 20th century by Phan Bội Châus History of the Loss of Vietnam, and later by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when both the government in Huế and the Viet Minh government in Hanoi adopted Việt Nam. Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age, Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500,000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance, teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have also been found at Dong Can, and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu, Lang Gao and Lang Cuom. The Hồng Bàng dynasty of the Hùng kings is considered the first Vietnamese state, in 257 BC, the last Hùng king was defeated by Thục Phán, who consolidated the Lạc Việt and Âu Việt tribes to form the Âu Lạc, proclaiming himself An Dương Vương
22.
Hong Kong
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Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia. Macau lies across the delta to the west, and the Chinese province of Guangdong borders the territory to the north. With a total area of 1,106 square kilometres. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during World War II until British control resumed in 1945, under the principle of one country, two systems, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative, in addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of appropriate fields. Hong Kong is one of the worlds most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the worlds most competitive and freest economic entity. As the worlds 8th largest trading entity, its legal tender, Hong Kongs tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by its independent judiciary system. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and it has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the worlds longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring areas of Mainland China. Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island, before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour, literally means Little Hong Kong)—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was a point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time, fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbours fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour, the name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric. As of 1997, its name is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. This is the title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law. Hong Kong has carried many nicknames, the most famous among those is the Pearl of the Orient, which reflected the impressive nightscape of the citys light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour
23.
Taipei
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Taipei, officially known as Taipei City, is the capital city and a special municipality of the Republic of China. Sitting at the tip of the island, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City. It is about 25 km southwest of the port city Keelung. Since 1949, Taipei has been the capital of the ROC after losing the mainland to the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, the name Taipei can refer either to the whole metropolitan area or the city proper. Taipei is the political, economic, educational, and cultural center of Taiwan, considered to be a global city, Taipei is part of a major high-tech industrial area. Railways, high-speed rail, highways, airports, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island, the city is served by two airports – Taipei Songshan and Taiwan Taoyuan. Its natural features such as Maokong, Yangmingshan, and hot springs are also known to international visitors. As the capital city, Taipei is sometimes used as a synecdoche for Taiwan, prior to the significant influx of Han Chinese immigrants, the region of Taipei Basin was mainly inhabited by the Ketagalan plains aborigines. The number of Han immigrants gradually increased in the early 18th century under Qing Dynasty rule after the government began permitting development in the area, in 1875, the northern part of the island was incorporated into the new Taipeh Prefecture. The Qing dynasty of China made Taipeh the temporary capital of Fujian-Taiwan Province in 1886 when Taiwan was separated from Fujian Province, Taipeh was formally made the provincial capital in 1894. Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895 under the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan became a colony of Imperial Japan with Taihoku as its capital, in which the city was administered under Taihoku Prefecture. Taiwans Japanese rulers embarked on a program of advanced urban planning that featured extensive railroad links. A number of Taipei landmarks and cultural institutions date from this period, following the Japanese surrender of 1945, control of Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China. In 1990 Taipei provided the backdrop for the Wild Lily student rallies that moved Taiwanese society from one-party rule to multi-party democracy, the city is today home to Taiwans democratically elected national government. The region known as the Taipei Basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century, Han Chinese mainly from Fujian Province of Qing dynasty China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In 1875, the part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture. From 1875 until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Tamsui County of Taipeh Prefecture, in 1885, work commenced to create an independent Taiwan Province, and Taipei City was temporarily made the provincial capital. Taipei officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894, all that remains from the Qing era is the north gate
24.
Bus
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A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry many passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers, many types of buses, such as city transit buses and inter-city coaches, charge a fare. Other types, such as elementary or secondary school buses or shuttle buses within a post-secondary education campus do not charge a fare, in many jurisdictions, bus drivers require a special licence above and beyond a regular drivers licence. Horse-drawn buses were used from the 1820s, followed by steam buses in the 1830s, the first internal combustion engine buses, or motor buses, were used in 1895. Recently, interest has been growing in hybrid electric buses, fuel cell buses, as of the 2010s, bus manufacturing is increasingly globalised, with the same designs appearing around the world. Bus is a form of the Latin word omnibus. The first horse-drawn omnibus service was started by a businessman named Stanislas Baudry in the French city of Nantes in 1823, Nantes citizens soon gave the nickname omnibus to the vehicle. The omnibus in Nantes was a success and Baudry moved to Paris, a similar service was introduced in London in 1829. The first mechanically propelled omnibus appeared on the streets of London on 22 April 1833, in parallel to the development of the bus was the invention of the electric trolleybus, typically fed through trolley poles by overhead wires. The Siemens brothers, William in England and Ernst Werner in Germany, sir William first proposed the idea in an article to the Journal of the Society of Arts in 1881 as an. arrangement by which an ordinary omnibus. The first such vehicle, the Electromote, was made by his brother Dr. Ernst Werner von Siemens and presented to the public in 1882 in Halensee, Germany. Although this experimental vehicle fulfilled all the criteria of a typical trolleybus. Max Schiemann opened a trolleybus in 1901 near Dresden, in Germany. Although this system operated only until 1904, Schiemann had developed what is now the standard trolleybus current collection system, in the early days, a few other methods of current collection were used. Leeds and Bradford became the first cities to put trolleybuses into service in Great Britain on 20 June 1911, in Siegerland, Germany, two passenger bus lines ran briefly, but unprofitably, in 1895 using a six-passenger motor carriage developed from the 1893 Benz Viktoria. Another commercial bus line using the same model Benz omnibuses ran for a time in 1898 in the rural area around Llandudno. Daimler also produced one of the earliest motor-bus models in 1898, the vehicle had a maximum speed of 18 kph and accommodated up to 20 passengers, in an enclosed area below and on an open-air platform above. With the success and popularity of bus, Daimler expanded production, selling more buses to companies in London and, in 1899, to Stockholm
25.
Electric bus
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An electric bus is a bus powered by electricity. The gapbus is a bus without rails or surface power lines, Power is supplied over a gap of 12 cm from a power line embedded in the ground. Online Electric Vehicle by KAIST, propelled by a high frequency electric cable buried under the pavement, one of the most popular electric buses nowadays are the battery electric buses. They have stored the electricity on board in a battery, today such buses have a range over 200 km with one charge. These buses are used because of its limited range as city buses. As a city bus with all costs they are cheaper than a diesel bus. City driving mostly is accelerating and braking the battery electric bus is superior to buses as it can recharge most of the kinetic energy back to batteries in braking situations. This reduces brake wear and it also improves air quality in city centers, when operating within a city it is important to minimize the unloaded and rolling weight of the bus. This can be accomplished by using aluminium as the construction material for a bus. Composite paneling and other materials can also be used. According to Linkkebus their fully aluminium bus construction is about 3000kg lighter than comparably-sized modern steel buses, reducing weight allows for a greater payload and reduces wear to components such as brakes, tires, and joints bringing costs savings to the operator. The best ultracapacitors can only store about 5 percent of the energy that lithium-ion batteries hold and this makes them ineffective as an energy storage medium for passenger vehicles. But what ultracapacitors lack in range they make up in their ability to charge and discharge. So in vehicles that have to stop frequently and predictably as part of normal operation, a few prototypes were being tested in Shanghai in early 2005. In 2006, two bus routes began to use electric double-layer capacitor buses, one of them is route 11 in Shanghai. Another 60 buses will be delivered next year with ultracapacitors that supply 10 watt-hours per kilogram. The buses have very predictable routes and need to regularly, every 3 miles. The trick is to some bus stops along the route into charging stations
26.
Bicycle
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A bicycle, often called a bike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist, Bicycles were introduced in the 19th century in Europe and as of 2003, more than 1 billion have been produced worldwide, twice as many as the number of automobiles that have been produced. They are the means of transportation in many regions. They also provide a form of recreation, and have been adapted for use as childrens toys, general fitness, military and police applications, courier services. The basic shape and configuration of an upright or safety bicycle, has changed little since the first chain-driven model was developed around 1885. But many details have been improved, especially since the advent of modern materials and these have allowed for a proliferation of specialized designs for many types of cycling. The bicycles invention has had an effect on society, both in terms of culture and of advancing modern industrial methods. The word bicycle first appeared in English print in The Daily News in 1868, to describe Bysicles and trysicles on the Champs Elysées, the word was first used in 1847 in a French publication to describe an unidentified two-wheeled vehicle, possibly a carriage. The design of the bicycle was an advance on the velocipede, Other words for bicycle include bike, pushbike, pedal cycle, or cycle. In Unicode, the point for bicycle is 0x1F6B2. The entity 🚲, in HTML produces
27.
Motorized bicycle
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A motorized bicycle is a bicycle with an attached motor and transmission used either to power the vehicle unassisted, or to assist with pedalling. Since it always retains both pedals and a discrete connected drive for rider-powered propulsion, the bicycle is in technical terms a true bicycle. However, for purposes of licensing and registration requirements, the type may be legally defined as a motor vehicle, motorcycle, moped. Powered by a variety of types and designs, the motorized bicycle formed the prototype for what would later become the motorcycle. Motorized bicycles have utilized all variety of engines, from internal-combustion two-stroke and four-stroke gasoline engines to electric, diesel, most motorized bicycles are based or derived from standard general-purpose bicycle frame designs and technologies, although exceptions abound. In addition, modifications to a bicycle frame to support motorization may be extensive. In a day when gasoline engine and transmission designs were in their infancy, and power-to-weight ratios were low, as time went on, pedal propulsion was increasingly replaced by constant use of a two or four-stroke gasoline engine. In countries where automobiles and/or fuels are prohibitively expensive, the bicycle has enjoyed continued popularity as a primary mode of transportation. The design of the bicycle or motorbike varies widely according to intended use. Some motorized bicycles are powerful enough to be self-propelled, without use of the pedals, the alternate design philosophy to the moped is the so-called motor-assist or pedal-assist bicycle. These machines utilize the pedals as the dominant form of propulsion, the two-wheeled pedal powered bicycle was first conceived in Paris in the 1860s. By 1888 John Dunlops pneumatic tire and the drive made possible the safety bicycle. The origins of the bicycle or motorbike can be traced back to the latter part of the 19th century when experimenters began attaching steam engines to stock tricycles and quadracycles. The first true motorized bicycle is considered to be the French Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede of 1868. The Michaux-Perreaux was followed by the American Roper steam velocipede of 1869, built by Sylvester H. Roper of Roxbury, Roper demonstrated his machine at fairs and circuses in the eastern United States in 1867, and built a total of 10 examples. These early attempts at propelling a bicycle by means other than the body were not successful. It was not until the 1890s, with the advent of the internal combustion engine. One of the first gas motor-assisted bicycle designs was the Millet motorcycle developed by Félix Millet in France in 1892, millets designs had both pedals and a fixed-crankshaft radial engine built into the back wheel
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Bicycle-sharing system
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A bicycle-sharing system, public bicycle system, or bike-share scheme, is a service in which bicycles are made available for shared use to individuals on a very short term basis. Bike share schemes allow people to borrow a bike from point A, many bike-share systems offer subscriptions that make the first 30–45 minutes of use either free or very inexpensive, encouraging use as transportation. This allows each bike to serve several users per day, in most bike-share cities, casual riding over several hours or days is better served by bicycle rental than by bike-share. For many systems, smartphone mapping apps show nearby stations with available bikes, bike-share began in Europe in 1965 and a viable format emerged in the mid-2000s thanks to the introduction of information technology. As of June 2014, public bikesharing systems were available in 50 countries on five continents, including 712 cities, operating approximately 806,200 bicycles at 37,500 stations. As of May 2011, the Wuhan and Hangzhou Public Bicycle bike-share systems in China were the largest in the world, the Vélib in Paris bicycle stations, is the largest outside of China. The countries with the most systems are Spain, Italy, as of July 2013, the systems with the higher market penetration are both operating in France, the Parisian Velib with 1 bike per 97 inhabitants and Vélov in Lyon with one bike per 121 residents. Bicycle-sharing systems have also cited as a way to solve the last mile problem. The reasons people use bike-share vary considerably, some who would otherwise use their own bicycle have concerns about theft or vandalism, parking or storage, and maintenance requirements. Government-run bicycle-sharing programmes can also prove costly to the public unless subsidised by commercial interests, although users of such systems generally pay to use vehicles that they themselves do not own, sharing systems differ from traditional for-profit bike rental businesses. In recent years, in an effort to reduce losses from theft and vandalism, many bike-sharing schemes now require a user to provide a deposit or other security. Most large-scale urban bike sharing programmes utilise numerous bike check-out stations, some bike-sharing systems are completely free like Aarhus in Denmark. As a consequence, most publicly owned bicycle sharing systems utilise funding from public governmental and/or charitable sources, Bike sharing schemes may be administered by government entities, nonprofit private organisations, or via public-private partnerships. In some cases, such as a university campus, the bicycles are designated for use within certain boundaries. Users are expected to leave the bike unlocked in an area once they reach their destination. Bicycle sharing programs without locks, user identification, and security deposits have also suffered large loss rates from theft. Deposit A small cash deposit releases the bike from a locked terminal, since the deposit is a fraction of the bikes cost, this does little to deter theft. Other bike sharing programmes have implemented rules requiring the user to provide a credit card, along with substantial security deposits for bicycles
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Hangzhou
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Hangzhou, formerly romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang Province in east China. It sits at the head of Hangzhou Bay, which separates Shanghai, the citys West Lake is its best-known attraction. Hangzhou is classified as a city and forms the core of the Hangzhou metropolitan area. During the 2010 Chinese census, the area held 21.102 million people over an area of 34,585 km2. Hangzhou prefecture had a population of 9,018,000 in 2015. In September 2015, Hangzhou was awarded the 2022 Asian Games and it will be the third Chinese city to play host to the Asian Games after Beijing 1990 and Guangzhou 2010. Hangzhou, a technology hub and home to the e-commerce giant Alibaba. The celebrated neolithic culture of Hemudu is known to have inhabited Yuyao,100 km south-east of Hangzhou and it was during this time that rice was first cultivated in southeast China. Excavations have established that the jade-carving Liangzhu culture inhabited the area immediately around the present city around five years ago. The first of Hangzhous present neighborhoods to appear in records was Yuhang. Hangzhou was made the seat of the zhou of Hang in AD589, by a longstanding convention also seen in other cities like Guangzhou and Fuzhou, the city took on the name of the area it administered and became known as Hangzhou. Hangzhou was at the end of Chinas Grand Canal which extends to Beijing. The canal evolved over centuries but reached its full length by 609, in the Tang dynasty, Bai Juyi was appointed governor of Hangzhou. Already an accomplished and famous poet, his deeds at Hangzhou have led to his being praised as a great governor. He ordered the construction of a stronger and taller dyke, with a dam to control the flow of water, thus providing water for irrigation, the livelihood of local people of Hangzhou improved over the following years. Bai Juyi used his time to enjoy the beauty of West Lake. He also ordered the construction of a causeway connecting Broken Bridge with Solitary Hill to allow walking and he then had willows and other trees planted along the dyke, making it a beautiful landmark. This causeway was later named Bai Causeway, in his honor and it is listed as one of the Seven Ancient Capitals of China
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Pronunciation of "Cangnan" (help·info)) is a county in the prefecture-level city of Wenzhou in southern Zhejiang. The county government is in Lingxi. Cangnan has 20 towns, 14 townships, and 2 nationality townships, the predominant Chinese dialect spoken in Cangnan is Zhenan Min, but other dialects, such as Wenzhou dialect and Jinxiang dialect, are also spoken.
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