1.
Tianjin
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Tianjin, formerly known in English as Tientsin, is a metropolis in northern coastal Mainland China and one of the five national central cities of the country, with a total population of 15,469,500. It is governed as one of the four direct-controlled municipalities of the PRC and is thus under direct administration of the central government, Tianjin borders Hebei Province and Beijing Municipality, bounded to the east by the Bohai Gulf portion of the Yellow Sea. Part of the Bohai Economic Rim, it is the largest coastal city in northern China, in terms of urban population, Tianjin is the fourth largest in China, after Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. In terms of area population, Tianjin ranks fifth in Mainland China. The walled city of Tianjin was built in 1404, as a treaty port since 1860, Tianjin has been a major seaport and gateway to Beijing. During the Boxer Rebellion the city was the seat of the Tianjin Provisional Government, under the Ta-tsing Empire, and the Republic of China, Tianjin became one of the largest cities in the region. At that time, numerous European-style buildings and mansions were constructed in concessions, after the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, Tianjin suffered a depression due to the policy of the central government and Tangshan earthquake, but recovered from 1990s. As of the end of 2010, around 285 Fortune 500 companies have set up base in Binhai, Tianjin is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese characters 天津, which mean Heavenly Ford or Ford of Heaven. The origin of the name is obscure, one folk etymology is that it was an homage to the patriotic Chu poet Qu Yuan, whose Li Sao includes the verse. departing from the Ford of Heaven at dawn. Another is that it honors a former name of the Girl, a third is that it derives from a place name noted in the River Record of the History of Jin. The most common are that it was bestowed by the Yongle Emperor of the Ming, before this time, it was open sea. The opening of the Grand Canal during the Sui dynasty prompted the development of Tianjin into a trading center, during the Qing dynasty Tianjin was promoted to a prefecture or Zhou in 1725 with Tianjin County established under the prefecture in 1731. Later it was to upgraded to a prefecture or Fu before becoming a relay station under the command of the Viceroy of Zhili. In 1856, Chinese soldiers boarded The Arrow, a Chinese-owned ship registered in Hong Kong flying the British flag and suspected of piracy, smuggling and they captured 12 men and imprisoned them. In response, the British and French sent gunboats under the command of Admiral Sir Michael Seymour to capture the Taku forts near Tianjin in May 1858. At the end of the first part of the Second Opium War in June of the year, the British and French prevailed, and the Treaties of Tianjin were signed. The treaties were ratified by the Emperor of China in 1860, and Tianjin was formally opened to Great Britain and France and these nations left many architectural reminders of their rule, notably churches and thousands of villas. Today those villas provide a flavour to Tianjin
2.
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
3.
Hebei
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Hebei is a province of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is 冀, named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei, the name Hebei literally means north of the river, referring to its location entirely to the north of the Huang He 黄河. Hebei was formed in 1928 after the government dissolved the province of Chihli. Beijing and Tianjin Municipalities, which each other, were carved out of Hebei. The province borders Liaoning to the northeast, Inner Mongolia to the north, Shanxi to the west, Henan to the south, Bohai Bay of the Yellow Sea is to the east. A common alternate name for Hebei is Yānzhào, after the state of Yan, plains in Hebei were the home of Peking man, a group of Homo erectus that lived in the area around 200,000 to 700,000 years ago. Neolithic findings at the prehistoric Beifudi site date back to 7000 and 8000 BC, during the Spring and Autumn period, Hebei was under the rule of the states of Yan in the north and Jin in the south. Also during this period, a people known as Dí invaded the plains of northern China. During the Warring States period, Jin was partitioned, and much of its territory within Hebei went to Zhao, the Qin Dynasty unified China in 221 BC. The Han Dynasty ruled the area under two provinces, Youzhou Province in the north and Jizhou Province in the south, Hebei then came under the rule of the Kingdom of Wei, established by the descendants of Cao Cao. After the invasions of nomadic peoples at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the chaos of the Sixteen Kingdoms. Hebei, firmly in North China and right at the frontier, changed hands many times, being controlled at various points in history by the Later Zhao, Former Yan, Former Qin. The Northern Wei reunified northern China in 440, but split in half in 534, with Hebei coming under the eastern half, the Sui Dynasty again unified China in 589. During the Tang Dynasty, the area was formally designated Hebei for the first time, during the earlier part of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Hebei was fragmented among several regimes, though it was eventually unified by Li Cunxu, who established the Later Tang. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the sixteen ceded prefectures continued to be an area of hot contention between Song China and the Liao Dynasty. The Southern Song Dynasty that came after abandoned all of North China, including Hebei, the Mongol Yuan Dynasty divided China into provinces but did not establish Hebei as a province. Rather, the area was administrated by the Secretariat at capital Dadu. When the Manchu Qing Dynasty came to power in 1644, they abolished the southern counterpart, during the Qing Dynasty, the northern borders of Zhili extended deep into what is now Inner Mongolia, and overlapped in jurisdiction with the leagues of Inner Mongolia
4.
Beijing
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Beijing is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and the worlds third most populous city proper. It is also one of the worlds most populous capital cities, the city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by population after Shanghai and is the nations political, cultural. It is home to the headquarters of most of Chinas largest state-owned companies, and is a hub for the national highway, expressway, railway. The citys history dates back three millennia, as the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A. D, the city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture, encyclopædia Britannica notes that few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. Siheyuans, the traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, many of Beijings 91 universities consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities in the world. Beijings Zhongguancun area is known as Chinas Silicon Valley and Chinas center of innovation. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory Personal Finance Index, expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi. Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had other names. The name Beijing, which means Northern Capital, was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing, the English spelling is based on the pinyin romanisation of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 京 as kjaeng, the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is BJ, the earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic Homo sapiens also lived more recently, about 27,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found neolithic settlements throughout the municipality, including in Wangfujing, the first walled city in Beijing was Ji, a city from the 11th to 7th century BC
5.
Henan
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Henan is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is 豫, named after Yuzhou, a Han Dynasty state that parts of Henan. Although the name of the province south of the river, approximately a quarter of the province lies north of the Yellow River. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou which literally means central plain land or midland, although the name is also applied to the entirety of China proper. Henan is the birthplace of Chinese civilization with over 3,000 years of recorded history, and remained Chinas cultural, economical, numerous heritages have been left behind including the ruins of Shang Dynasty capital city Yin and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the Eight Great Ancient Capitals of China, Luoyang, Anyang, Kaifeng, with an area of 167,000 km2, Henan covers a large part of the fertile and densely populated North China Plain. Its neighbouring provinces are Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Anhui, Henan is Chinas third most populous province with a population of over 94 million. If it were a country by itself, Henan would be the 12th most populous country in the world, behind Mexico, Henan is the 5th largest provincial economy of China and the largest among inland provinces. However, per capita GDP is low compared to eastern and central provinces. The economy continues to depend on its dwindling aluminum and coal reserves, as well as agriculture, heavy industry, tourism, high-tech industry and service sector is underdeveloped and is concentrated around Zhengzhou and Luoyang. Widely regarded as the Cradle of Chinese civilization along with Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, Henan is known for its historical prosperity, the economic prosperity resulted from its extensive fertile plains and its location at the heart of the country. However, its location also means that it has suffered from nearly all of the major wars in China. In addition, the floods of the Yellow River have caused significant damage from time to time. Kaifeng, in particular, has been buried by the Yellow Rivers silt seven times due to flooding, archaeological sites reveal that prehistoric cultures such as the Yangshao Culture and Longshan Culture were active in what is now northern Henan since the Neolithic Era. The more recent Erlitou culture has been identified with the Xia Dynasty. Virtually the entire kingdom existed within what is now north and central Henan, the Xia Dynasty collapsed around the 16th century BC following the invasion of Shang, a neighboring vassal state centered around todays Shangqiu in eastern Henan. The Shang Dynasty was the first literate dynasty of China and its many capitals are located at the modern cities of Shangqiu, Yanshi, and Zhengzhou. Their last and most important capital, Yin, located in modern Anyang, is where the first Chinese writing was created, in the 11th century BC, the Zhou Dynasty of Shaanxi arrived from the west and overthrew the Shang Dynasty
6.
Inner Mongolia
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Its capital is Hohhot, and other major cities include Baotou, Chifeng, and Ordos. It is the third largest subdivision of China, spanning approximately 1,200,000 km2 or 12% of Chinas total land area and it recorded a population of 24,706,321 in the 2010 census, accounting for 1. 84% of Mainland Chinas total population. Inner Mongolia is the countrys 23rd most populous province-level division, the majority of the population in the region is Han Chinese, with a sizeable titular Mongol minority. In Chinese, the region is known as Inner Mongolia, where the terms of Inner/Outer are derived from Manchu dorgi/tulergi. The term Inner 内 referred to the Nei Fan 内番, i. e. those descendants of Genghis Khan who granted the title khan in Ming and Qing Dynasties and lived in part of southern part of Mongolia. In recent years, some Mongols began to call Inner Mongolia Nan Menggu, literally South Mongolia, much of what is known about the history of Greater Mongolia, including Inner Mongolia, is known through Chinese chronicles and historians. Slab Grave cultural monuments are found in northern, central and eastern Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, north-western China, Mongolian scholars prove that this culture related to the Proto-Mongols. During the Zhou Dynasty, central and western Inner Mongolia were inhabited by peoples such as the Loufan, Linhu. During the Warring States period, King Wuling of the state of Zhao based in what is now Hebei, after destroying the Dí state of Zhongshan in what is now Hebei province, he defeated the Linhu and Loufan and created the commandery of Yunzhong near modern Hohhot. King Wuling of Zhao also built a long wall stretching through the Hetao region and he also maintained two commanderies in the region, Jiuyuan and Yunzhong, and moved 30,000 households there to solidify the region. After the Qin Dynasty collapsed in 206 BC, these efforts were abandoned, during the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu sent the general Wei Qing to reconquer the Hetao region from the Xiongnu in 127 BC. After the conquest, Emperor Wu continued the policy of building settlements in Hetao to defend against the Xiong-Nu, in that same year he established the commanderies of Shuofang and Wuyuan in Hetao. At the same time, what is now eastern Inner Mongolia was controlled by the Xianbei, during the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xiongnu who surrendered to the Han Dynasty began to be settled in Hetao, and intermingled with the Han immigrants in the area. Hetao was then taken over by the Khitan Empire, founded by the Khitans and they were followed by the Western Xia of the Tanguts, who took control of what is now the western part of Inner Mongolia. The Khitans were later replaced by the Jurchens, precursors to the modern Manchus, after Genghis Khan unified the Mongol tribes in 1206 and founded the Mongol Empire, the Tangut Western Xia empire was ultimately conquered in 1227, and the Jurchen Jin dynasty fell in 1234. In 1271, Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan established the Yuan dynasty, Kublai Khans summer capital Shangdu was located near present-day Dolonnor. During that time Ongud and Khunggirad peoples dominated the area of what is now Inner Mongolia, after the Yuan dynasty was overthrown by the Han-led Ming dynasty in 1368, the Ming captured parts of Inner Mongolia including Shangdu and Yingchang. The Ming rebuilt the Great Wall of China at its present location, the Ming established the Three Guards composed of the Mongols there
7.
Shanxi
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Shanxi is a province of China, located in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is 晋, after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring, the name Shanxi means West of the Mountains, a reference to the provinces location west of the Taihang Mountains. Shanxi borders Hebei to the east, Henan to the south, Shaanxi to the west, the capital of the province is Taiyuan. In the Spring and Autumn period, the state of Jin was located in what is now Shanxi and it underwent a three-way split into the states of Han, Zhao and Wei in 403 BC, the traditional date taken as the start of the Warring States period. By 221 BC, all of states had fallen to the state of Qin. The Han Dynasty ruled Shanxi as the province of Bingzhou, during the invasion of northern nomads in the Sixteen Kingdoms period, several regimes including the Later Zhao, Former Yan, Former Qin, and Later Yan continuously controlled Shanxi. They were followed by Northern Wei, a Xianbei kingdom, which had one of its earlier capitals at present-day Datong in northern Shanxi, the Tang Dynasty originated in Taiyuan. During the Tang Dynasty and after, present day Shanxi was called Hédōng, empress Wu Zetian, Chinas only female ruler, was born in Shanxi. Shanxi was initially home to the jiedushi of Hedong, Li Cunxu, shi Jingtang, founder of the Later Jin, the third of the Five Dynasties, ceded a piece of northern China to the Khitans in return for military assistance. This territory, called The Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, included a part of northern Shanxi, the ceded territory became a major problem for Chinas defense against the Khitans for the next 100 years, because it lay south of the Great Wall. He founded his dynasty by launching a coup against the Turkic Later Han Emperor. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the sixteen ceded prefectures continued to be an area of contention between Song China and the Liao Dynasty. Later the Southern Song Dynasty abandoned all of North China, including Shanxi, the Mongol Yuan Dynasty divided China into provinces but did not establish Shanxi as a province. Shanxi only gained its present name and approximate borders during the Ming Dynasty which were of the same landarea, with the collapse of the Qing dynasty, Shanxi became part of the newly established Republic of China. During most of the Republic of Chinas period of rule over mainland China, Yan Xishan devoted himself to modernizing Shanxi and developing its resources during his reign over the province. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japan occupied much of the province after winning the Battle of Taiyuan, Shanxi was also a major battlefield between the Japanese and the Chinese communist guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army during the war. The soldiers of Shanxi province under Yan Xishan viciously fought against the invading Japanese, right after the defeat of Japan, much of the Shanxi countryside became important bases for the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the ensuing Chinese Civil War. Shanxi was eventually conquered by the communists, resulting in the warlord Yan Xishans retreat to Taiwan Island, for centuries, Shanxi served as the center of trade and banking, the Shanxi merchants were once synonymous with wealth
8.
Shandong
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Shandong is a coastal province of the Peoples Republic of China, and is part of the East China region. Shandongs Mount Tai is the most revered mountain of Taoism and one of the sites with the longest history of continuous religious worship. The Buddhist temples in the mountains to the south of the capital of Jinan were once among the foremost Buddhist sites in China. The city of Qufu is the birthplace of Confucius, and was established as the center of Confucianism. Individually, the two Chinese characters in the name Shandong mean mountain and east, Shandong could hence be translated literally as east of the mountains and refers to the provinces location to the east of the Taihang Mountains. A common nickname for Shandong is Qílǔ, after the States of Qi and Lu that existed in the area during the Spring and Autumn period. Whereas the State of Qi was a power of its era. Lu, however, became renowned for being the home of Confucius, the cultural dominance of the State of Lu heritage is reflected in the official abbreviation for Shandong which is 鲁. English speakers in the 19th century called the province Shan-tung, the province is on the eastern edge of the North China Plain and in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, and extends out to sea as the Shandong Peninsula. The earliest dynasties exerted varying degrees of control over western Shandong, over subsequent centuries, the Dongyi were eventually sinicized. During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, at this time, Shandong was home to two major states, the state of Qi at Linzi and the state of Lu at Qufu. Lu is noted for being the home of Confucius, the state was, however, comparatively small, and eventually succumbed to the larger state of Chu from the south. The state of Qi was, on the hand, was a major power throughout the period. Cities it ruled included Linzi, Jimo and Ju, the Qin dynasty conquered Qi and founded the first centralized Chinese state in 221 BCE. The Han dynasty that followed created a number of commanderies supervised by two regions in what is now modern Shandong, Qingzhou in the north and Yanzhou in the south, during the division of the Three Kingdoms, Shandong belonged to the Cao Wei, which ruled over northern China. After the Three Kingdoms period, a period of unity under the Western Jin dynasty gave way to invasions by nomadic peoples from the north. Northern China, including Shandong, was overrun, Shandong stayed with the Northern Dynasties for the rest of this period. The Sui dynasty reestablished unity in 589, and the Tang dynasty presided over the golden age of China
9.
Taihang Mountains
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The Taihang Mountains are a Chinese mountain range running down the eastern edge of the Loess Plateau in Shanxi, Henan and Hebei provinces. The range extends over 400 kilometres from north to south and has an elevation of 1,500 to 2,000 metres. The principal peak is Xiao Wutaishan, cangyan Shan in Hebei forms the eastern tip of the Taihang range. The name of Shanxi Province, meaning west of the mountains, derives from its location west of the Taihang Mountains, the Red Flag Canal is located on the south edge of the Taihang Mountains. The Shitai Passenger Railway crosses under the Taihang Mountains via the Taihang Tunnel, a Walk in the Taihang Mountains
This article incorporates text from Publication, Issue 33 Document (United States. War Dept.), by United States. Adjutant-General's Office. Military Information Division, a publication from 1901 now in the public domain in the United States.
This article incorporates text from Publication, Issue 33 Document (United States. War Dept.), by United States. Adjutant-General's Office. Military Information Division, a publication from 1901 now in the 
