1.
Hubei
–
Hubei is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the Central China region. The name of the province north of the lake, referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The provincial capital is Wuhan, a major thoroughfare and the political, cultural. It borders Henan to the north, Anhui to the east, Jiangxi to the southeast, Hunan to the south, Chongqing to the west, the high-profile Three Gorges Dam is located at Yichang, in the west of the province. The Hubei region was home to sophisticated Neolithic cultures, by the Spring and Autumn period, the territory of todays Hubei was part of the powerful State of Chu. During the Warring States period Chu became the major adversary of the upstart State of Qin to the northwest, which began to assert itself by outward expansionism. As wars between Qin and Chu ensued, Chu lost more and more land, first its dominance over the Sichuan Basin, then its heartland, which correspond to modern Hubei. In 223 BC Qin chased down the remnants of the Chu regime, Qin founded the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, the first unified state in the region. Qin was succeeded by the Han dynasty in 206 BC, which established the province of Jingzhou in what is now Hubei, the Qin and Han played an active role in the agricultural colonization of Hubei, maintaining a system of river dikes to protect farmland from summer floods. Towards the end of the Han Dynasty in the beginning of the 3rd century, the incursion of northern nomadic peoples into the region at the beginning of the 4th century began nearly three centuries of division into a nomad-ruled north and a Han Chinese-ruled south. Hubei, to the South, remained under southern rule for this entire period, until the unification of China by the Sui dynasty in 589. After the Tang dynasty disintegrated in the 10th century, Hubei came under the control of several regional regimes, Jingnan in the center, Wu to the east, and the Five Dynasties to the north. The Song dynasty reunified the region in 982 and placed most of Hubei into Jinghubei Circuit, Mongols conquered the region in 1279, and under their rule the province of Huguang was established, covering Hubei, Hunan, and parts of Guangdong and Guangxi. The Ming dynasty drove out the Mongols in 1368 and their version of Huguang province was smaller, and corresponded almost entirely to the modern provinces of Hubei and Hunan combined. While Hubei was geographically removed from the centers of the Ming power, during the last years of the Ming, todays Hubei was ravaged several times by the rebel armies of Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng. The Manchu Qing dynasty which had much of the region in 1644, soon split Huguang into the provinces of Hubei. The Huangshi/Daye area, south-east of Wuhan, became an important center of mining, in 1911 the Wuchang Uprising took place in modern-day Wuhan, overthrowing the Qing dynasty and establishing the Republic of China. In 1927 Wuhan became the seat of a government established by left-wing elements of the Kuomintang, led by Wang Jingwei, during World War II the eastern parts of Hubei were conquered and occupied by Japan while the western parts remained under Chinese control
Hubei
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Detail of an embroidered silk gauze ritual garment from a 4th-century BC,
Zhou era tomb at Mashan,
Jiangling County, Hubei
Hubei
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Map showing the location of Hubei Province
Hubei
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A family's ancestral hall,
Yangxin County
Hubei
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Boats on the Yangtze River, upstream from the Three Gorges
2.
Hebi
–
Hebi is a prefecture-level city in northern Henan province, China. Situated in mountainous terrain at the edge of the Shanxi plateau, Hebi New Area is an economic development zone. Panshitou reservoir is not far from Hebi, the prefecture-level city of Hebi administers 3 districts and 2 counties. Qibin District Shancheng District Heshan District Xun County Qi County Government website of Hebi
Hebi
–
Hebi in Henan
3.
Province of China
–
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
Province of China
–
Map comparing administrative divisions as drawn by the PRC and ROC.
Province of China
–
Provincial division 省份 Shěngfèn
4.
Geographic coordinate system
–
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
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
5.
Yellow River
–
The Yellow River or Huang He is the second-longest river in Asia, following the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of 5,464 km. Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai province of western China, it flows through nine provinces, the Yellow River basin has an east–west extent of about 1,900 kilometers and a north–south extent of about 1,100 km. Its total basin area is about 742,443 square kilometers and its basin was the birthplace of ancient Chinese civilization, and it was the most prosperous region in early Chinese history. Early Chinese literature including the Yu Gong or Tribute of Yu dating to the Warring States period refers to the Yellow River as simply 河, the first appearance of the name 黃河 is in the Book of Han written during the Eastern Han dynasty about the Western Han dynasty. The adjective yellow describes the color of the muddy water in the lower course of the river. One of its older Mongolian names was the Black River, because the river runs clear before it enters the Loess Plateau, in Mongolia itself, it is simply called the Šar Mörön. In Qinghai, the rivers Tibetan name is River of the Peacock above sea level they are the two largest plateau freshwater lakes nationwide, flowing east at the eastern edge of the Amne Machin Mountains, the Yellow River enters Maqu County in Gansu. Here, the river skirts through the peat bog known as the Zoigê Wetlands. Flowing now along the edge of Amne Machin, the river reenters Qinghai. The valley section stretches from Longyang Gorge in Qinghai to Qingtong Gorge in Gansu, steep cliffs line both sides of the river. The water bed is narrow and the drop is large, so the flow in this section is extremely turbulent. There are 20 gorges in this section, the most famous of these being the Longyang, Jishi, Liujia, Bapan, the flow conditions in this section makes it the best location for hydroelectric plants. The Yellow River exits Qinghai for the second and final time in these gorges, downstream from the Yanguo Gorge, the provincial capital of Lanzhou is built upon the Yellow Rivers banks. The Yellow River flows northeasterly out of Gansu and into Ningxia before the Qingtong Gorge, after emerging from the Qingtong Gorge, the river comes into a section of vast alluvial plains, the Yinchuan Plain and Hetao Plain. In this section, the regions along the river are mostly deserts and grasslands, the Hetao Plain has a length of 900 km and width of 30 to 50 km. It is historically the most important irrigation plain along the Yellow River, the Ordos Loop formed by an enormous twist of the Yellow River, beginning at Zhongning County in Ningxia and ending with a drastic eastward turn at its confluence with the Wei at Tongguan in Shaanxi. However, the division for the middle reaches of the river run from Hekou in Togtoh County, Inner Mongolia, to Zhengzhou. The middle reaches are 1,206 km long, with an area of 344,000 square kilometers,45. 7% of the total, with a total elevation drop of 890 m
Yellow River
–
The Yellow River at the
Hukou Falls.
Yellow River
–
Map of the Yellow River in northeastern China
Yellow River
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The "Mother River" monument in
Lanzhou
Yellow River
–
The Yellow River Breaches its Course by
Ma Yuan (1160–1225), Song Dynasty
6.
Baoding
–
Baoding is a city in Hebei province, China, approximately 150 kilometres southwest of the national capital, Beijing. Baoding is among 13 Chinese cities with a population of over 10 million, Baoding is a city with a history dating back to the Western Han Dynasty. It was destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century, but after the Mongols established the Yuan Dynasty and it acquired the name Baoding during the Yuan dynasty — the name is roughly interpreted as protecting the capital, referring to the citys proximity to Beijing. Baoding served for years as the capital of Zhili, and was a significant centre of culture in the Ming Dynasty. During the Boxer rebellion, Boxer rebels killed a Turk, two Swiss, and an Italian in Baoding, after Zhili province was abolished in 1928 Baoding became the capital of the newly formed Hebei province. During World War II, the city was the site of a headquarters for Japanese occupation forces, in 1970, however, the rapidly growing city of Shijiazhuang became the provincial capital instead. Baoding is located in the portion of Hebei province and lies on the North China Plain. Bordering prefecture-level cities in the province are Zhangjiakou to the north, Langfang and Cangzhou to the east, Baoding also borders Beijing to the northeast and Shanxi to the west. Elevations in Baodings administrative area decrease from northwest to southeast. 6% of the prefectures area, the highest peak is Mount Waitou, with an elevation of 2,286 metres. Moving southeast from this area, one encounters low-lying mountains and hills, further to the east lies generally flat terrain of 30 to 100 metres elevation. Here the primary rivers are the Juma, Yishui, Cao, Longquan, Tang, Baiyangdian Lake, the largest natural lake in northern China, can be found nearby. Spring can bear witness to sandstorms blowing in from the Mongolian steppe, accompanied by rapidly warming, autumn is similar to spring in temperature and lack of rainfall. The annual rainfall, about 60% of which falls in July and August alone, is highly variable, in the city itself, this amount has averaged to a meagre 513 millimetres per annum. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from −3.2 °C in January to 26.8 °C in July, there are 2,500 to 2,900 hours of bright sunshine annually, and the frost-free period lasts 165−210 days. Children aged up to 14 numbered 1,915,800, citizens 15 to 64 numbered 8,370,600, the urban area of Baoding has a population of around 1,006,000. The overwhelming majority of the population is Han Chinese, the language of Baoding is Mandarin Chinese — specifically, the Baoding dialect of Ji-Lu Mandarin. Despite Baodings proximity to Beijing, the Chinese spoken in Baoding is not particularly close to the Beijing dialect — rather, Baoding is located in the centre of the Bohai Rim economic area which includes Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang. One of the largest employers in Baoding is China Lucky Film, and, Yingli group,2010 World Cup sponsor, has its headquarters in Baoding, who is the Global Top 10 solar panel manufacturer
Baoding
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Back street in old Baoding
Baoding
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A courtyard in the mansion of the governor of Zhili
Baoding
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Another street of Baoding
Baoding
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Baoding's ancient lotus gardens
7.
Tianjin
–
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
Tianjin
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Clockwise from top: Jinwan Square, Tianjin Financial Center and Hai River, Xikai Church, Panorama of downtown Tianjin, Tianjin Railroad Station, Tianjin Eye
Tianjin
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17th century depiction of Tianjin
Tianjin
–
1902 map of Tianjin
Tianjin
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Church of Our Lady's Victories, built in 1869, was the place where the
Tientsin Church Incident happened.
8.
Shijiazhuang
–
Shijiazhuang, formerly romanized Shihkiachwang, is the capital and largest city of North Chinas Hebei Province. Administratively a prefecture-level city, it is about 263 kilometres southwest of Beijing, Shijiazhuangs total population ranked twelfth in mainland China. Shijiazhuang experienced dramatic growth after the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, the population of the metropolitan area has more than quadrupled in 30 years as a result of industrialization and infrastructural developments. From 2008 to 2011, Shijiazhuang implemented a plan which concluded with the reorganization of the city resulting in an increase of green areas and new buildings. A train station, airport and a system have been opened. The oldest name of the city was Shiyi, in pre-Han times, it was the site of the city of Shiyi in the state of Zhao, and from Han to Sui times it was the site of a county town with the same name. With the reorganization of government in the early period of the Tang dynasty. Shijiazhuang then became more than a local market town, subordinated to the flourishing city of Zhengding a few miles to the north. The growth of Shijiazhuang into one of Chinas major cities began in 1905, two years later the town became the junction for the new Shitai line, running from Shijiazhuang to Taiyuan, Shanxi. The city also became the centre of a road network. By 1935 it had far outstripped Zhengding as an economic centre, at the end of World War II the character of the city changed when it took on an administrative role as the preeminent city in western Hebei, and developed into an industrial city. Some industries, such as manufacturing, tobacco processing. On November 12,1947, the city was captured by Communist forces, in 1948, the city, formerly known as Shímén, was renamed Shijiazhuang. Today, the area is a memorial site, after 1949 the industrialisation of the city gathered momentum. Its population more than tripled in the decade 1948–58, in the 1950s, the city experienced a major expansion in the textile industry, with large-scale cotton spinning, weaving, printing, and dyeing works. In addition there are plants processing local farm produce, in the 1960s it was the site of a new chemical industry, with plants producing fertilizer and caustic soda. Shijiazhuang also became a base, with a tractor-accessory plant. In 1967, Tianjin was again carved out of Hebei, remaining a separate entity today, and thus the provincial capital was moved to Baoding
Shijiazhuang
–
Shijiazhuang Skyline
Shijiazhuang
Shijiazhuang
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Haze near the Shijiazhuang Wanda Plaza in 2013
Shijiazhuang
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Far view of Shijiazhuang
9.
Party chief of the Communist Party of China
–
In most cases, it is the de facto highest political office of its area of jurisdiction. The term can also be used for the position of Communist Party organizations in state-owned enterprises, universities, hospitals. In post-Cultural Revolution Chinese political theory, the Communist Party is responsible for the formulation of policies, at every level of jurisdiction, a government leader serves alongside the party secretary. For example, in the case of a province, the provincial Party Secretary is the de facto highest office, the Governor is usually the second-highest-ranking official in the partys Provincial Committee, and holds the concurrent title of Deputy Party Committee Secretary. A similar comparison can be made for municipal Party Secretaries and Mayors, there have been rare instances where both Party Secretary and Governor positions were held by the same person, though this is not the common practice since the end of the Cultural Revolution. The Party Secretary is usually assisted by numerous Deputy Party Secretaries, until the 1980s, the leading position of a local party organization was called the First Secretary, its deputy the Second Secretary. The local party organizations each had its own Secretariat with numerous secretaries, at the provincial level, the party chief is known as CPC Provincial Committee Secretary, while the corresponding government position is known as Governor. At the prefecture or municipal level, the party chief is known as CPC Municipal Committee Secretary, at the county level, the party chief is known as CPC County Committee Secretary, while the corresponding government position is known as the County Governor. At the township level, the party chief is known as CPC Township/town Committee Secretary, at the village level, the local party chief, known as the Village Party Branch Secretary heads a committee of around ten people to make executive decisions related to the village. The process is not entirely formal, and therefore the party chief at this level is not considered part of the Chinese civil service. In writing and the media, the CPC designation before the title is not used often because it is assumed that Provincial Committee Secretary refers to the Communist Party secretary. Generally, a top government official will also hold the first deputy party chief position, a Deputy Party Secretary assists in the work of the Party Secretary. In provincial and most prefecture-level jurisdictions, there are two deputy party chiefs, the higher-ranked deputy party chief is generally also concurrently the head of the government of the party committees area of jurisdiction. The other deputy party chief is known as the zhuanzhi fushuji, literally, generally, the zhuanzhi deputy party chief is also the head of the party school of any given jurisdiction. A Party Branch or Party Group exists in almost all institutions of state which are not formally part of the Communist Party organization and these include government organs, Peoples Congresses, ministries, provincial and municipal departments and so on. These organizations are created by mandate of a Party Committee, serve to ensure that the policy guidelines of the party is followed at each respective institution. The Party Branch Secretary or Party Group Secretary is an office from that of the Party Committee Secretary. They do not have the organization and bureaucracy that is commonplace with a Party Committee
Party chief of the Communist Party of China
–
China
10.
Han Chinese
–
The Han Chinese, Han people or simply Han are an ethnic group native to East Asia. They constitute approximately 92% of the population of China, 95% of Taiwan, 76% of Singapore, 23% of Malaysia, Han Chinese are the worlds largest ethnic group with over 1.3 billion people. Similarly, the Chinese language also came to be named the Han language ever since, in the Oxford Dictionary, the Han are defined as The dominant ethnic group in China. In the Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania, the Han are called the dominant population in China, as well as in Taiwan, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the Han are the Chinese peoples especially as distinguished from non-Chinese elements in the population. The name Hanzhong, in turn, was derived from the Han River, which flows through the regions plains. The river, in turn, derives its name from such as Tianhan, Yinhan, Xinghan or Yunhan, all ancient Chinese poetic nicknames for the Milky Way. This gave rise to a commonly used nowadays by overseas Chinese for ethnic identity – Huaren. The term is used in conversation and is also an element in the Cantonese word for Chinatown. The vast majority of Han Chinese – over 1.2 billion of them – live in areas under the jurisdiction of the Peoples Republic of China, where they constitute about 92% of its population. Han Chinese also constitute the majority in both of the administrative regions of the PRC—about 95% and 96% of the population of Hong Kong and Macau. There are over 22 million Han Chinese in Taiwan, they began migrating from the coastal provinces of mainland China to Taiwan during the 13th to 17th century. At first, these migrants chose to settle in locations that bore a resemblance to the areas they had left behind in mainland China, hoklo immigrants from Quanzhou settled in coastal regions, and those from Zhangzhou tended to gather on inland plains, while the Hakka inhabited hilly areas. Clashes between these groups over land, water, and cultural differences led to the relocation of some communities, of about 40 million overseas Chinese worldwide, nearly 30 million live in Southeast Asia. They are collectively called Nanyang Chinese, according to a population genetic study, Singapore is the country with the biggest proportion of Hans in Southeast Asia. Up until the past few decades, overseas Han communities originated predominantly from areas in southern China, christmas Island has a Chinese majority at 70%, large Chinese populations also live in Malaysia and Thailand. Prior to the 1965 split, Malaysia and Singapore used to have the largest overseas Chinese population in the world and this position has since been taken by Thailand. The prehistory of the Han ethnic group is closely intertwined with both records and mythology. Han Chinese trace their ancestry from a confederation of late neolithic/early bronze-age agricultural tribes that lived along the Guanzhong, the Yellow Emperor is traditionally credited to have united with the neighbouring Shennong tribes after defeating their leader, Flame Emperor, at the Battle of Banquan
Han Chinese
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1983 Map of ethnolinguistic groups in
mainland China and
Taiwan (Han is in olive green)
Han Chinese
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A female servant and male advisor dressed in
silk robes, ceramic figurines from the Western Han era
Han Chinese
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Han Chinese man wears a
queue in compliance with Manchu custom during the Qing dynasty
Han Chinese
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Zhang Zeduan 's painting
Along the River During the Qingming Festival captures the daily life of people from the Song period at the capital, Bianjing, today's
Kaifeng.
11.
Manchu
–
The Manchu are an ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. They are sometimes called red-tasseled Manchus, a reference to the ornamentation on traditional Manchu hats, the Later Jin, and Qing dynasty are established by Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty in China. Manchus form the largest branch of the Tungusic peoples and are distributed throughout China and they can be found in 31 Chinese provincial regions. They also form the largest minority group in China without an autonomous region, among them, Liaoning has the largest population and Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and Beijing have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the live in Liaoning and one-fifth in Hebei. The Sushen used flint-headed wooden arrows, farmed, hunted and fished, the cognates Sushen or Jichen again appear in the Shan Hai Jing and Book of Wei during the dynastic era referring to the Tungusic Mohe tribes of the far northeast. The Mohe practiced pig farming extensively and were sedentary. They were predominantly farmers and grew soybeans, wheat, millet and rice, in the 10th century CE, the term Jurchen first appeared in documents of the late Tang dynasty in reference to the state of Balhae in present-day northeastern China. Following the fall of Balhae, the Jurchens became vassals of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty, in the year 1114, Wanyan Aguda united the Jurchen tribes and established the Jin dynasty. His brother and successor, Wanyan Wuqimai defeated the Liao dynasty, after the fall of the Liao dynasty, the Jurchens went to war with the Northern Song dynasty, and captured most of northern China in the Jin–Song wars. During the Jin dynasty, the first Jurchen script came into use in the 1120s and it was mainly derived from the Khitan script. The Jurchens were sedentary, settled farmers with advanced agriculture and they farmed grain and millet as their cereal crops, grew flax, and raised oxen, pigs, sheep and horses. Their farming way of life was different from the pastoral nomadism of the Mongols. In 1206, the Mongols, vassals to the Jurchens, rose in Mongolia and their leader, Genghis Khan, led Mongol troops against the Jurchens, who were finally defeated by Ögedei Khan in 1234. From that time, the Jurchens of North China increasingly merged with the Han Chinese while those living in their homeland started to be Mongolized and they adopted Mongolian customs, names and the Mongolian language. As time went on, fewer and fewer Jurchens could recognize their own script, the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty was replaced by the Ming dynasty in 1368. In 1387, Ming forces defeated the Mongol commander Naghachus resisting forces who settled in the Haixi area, at the time, some Jurchen clans were vassals to the Joseon dynasty of Korea such as Odoli and Huligai. Their elites served in the Korean royal bodyguard, the Joseon Koreans tried to deal with the military threat posed by the Jurchen by using both forceful means and incentives, and by launching military attacks
Manchu
–
Nurhaci
Manchu
–
Kangxi Emperor
Manchu
–
Qianlong Emperor
Manchu
–
Puyi
12.
Hui people
–
According to a 2011 census, China is home to approximately 10.5 million Hui people, the majority of whom are Chinese-speaking practitioners of Islam, though some may practice other religions. Hui people are ethnically and linguistically similar to Han Chinese with the exception that most of them practice Islam, engendering distinctive cultural characteristics. For example, as Muslims, they follow Islamic dietary laws and reject the consumption of pork, the most common meat consumed in China, the Hui people are one of 56 ethnic groups recognized by China. The government defines the Hui people to include all historically Muslim communities not included in Chinas other ethnic groups, the Hui predominantly speak Chinese, while maintaining some Persian and Arabic phrases. In fact, the Hui ethnic group is unique among Chinese ethnic minorities in that it associates with non-Sinitic languages. The Hui people are concentrated in Northwestern China, but communities exist across the country, e. g. Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Hainan. After the establishment of the Peoples Republic, the term Hui applied to one of Chinas ten historically Islamic minorities, earlier the term referred to Chinese-speaking groups with Muslim ancestry. Practising Islam was not a criterion, use of the Hui category to describe foreign Muslims moving into China dates back to the Song dynasty. Hui people are of varied ancestry, many directly descending from Silk Road travelers and their ancestors include Central Asians, Arabs and Persians who married Hans. West Eurasian DNA is prevalent—6. 7% of Hui peoples maternal genetics have a West Eurasian origin, in subsequent centuries, they gradually mixed with Mongols and Hans, eventually forming the Hui. Nonetheless, included among Huis in Chinese census statistics are members of a few small non-Chinese speaking communities, a small Muslim minority among Yunnans Bai people are classified as Hui as well, as are some groups of Tibetan Muslims. Huihui was the generic term for Chinas Muslims during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Is thought to have its origin in the earlier Huihe or Huihu, although the ancient Uyghurs were not Muslims the name Huihui came to refer to foreigners, regardless of language or origin, by the time of the Yuan. and Ming Dynasties. By the aid of heaven we have pacified you, you are our slaves, yet you do not eat our food or drink. If you slaughter sheep, you will be considered guilty of a crime and he issued a regulation to that effect. All the Muslims say, if someone else slaughters we do not eat, the Chinese called Muslims, Jews and Christians in ancient times by the same name, Hui Hui. Christians were called Hui who abstain from animals without the foot, Muslims were called Hui who abstain from pork. Hui Hui is presently used almost exclusively for Muslims, but Jews were still called Lan mao Hui Hui which means Blue cap Hui Hui
Hui people
–
Ma Bufang
Hui people
Hui people
–
Ma Qi
Hui people
–
Ma Hongbin
13.
Mongol
–
The Mongols are an East-Central Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia and Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. They also live as minorities in other regions of China, as well as in Russia, Mongolian people belonging to the Buryat and Kalmyk subgroups live predominantly in the Russian federal subjects of Buryatia and Kalmykia. The Mongols are bound together by a heritage and ethnic identity. Their indigenous dialects are known as the Mongolian language. The ancestors of the modern-day Mongols are referred to as Proto-Mongols, broadly defined, the term includes the Mongols proper, Buryats, Oirats, the Kalmyk people and the Southern Mongols. The latter comprises the Abaga Mongols, Abaganar, Aohans, Baarins, Gorlos Mongols, Jalaids, Jaruud, Khishigten, Khuuchid, Muumyangan, the designation Mongol briefly appeared in 8th century records of Tang China to describe a tribe of Shiwei. It resurfaced in the late 11th century during the Khitan-ruled Liao dynasty, after the fall of the Liao in 1125, the Khamag Mongols became a leading tribe on the Mongolian Plateau. However, their wars with the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty and the Tatar confederation had weakened them, in the thirteenth century, the word Mongol grew into an umbrella term for a large group of Mongolic-speaking tribes united under the rule of Genghis Khan. In various times Mongolic peoples have been equated with the Scythians, the Magog, based on Chinese historical texts the ancestry of the Mongolic peoples can be traced back to the Donghu, a nomadic confederation occupying eastern Mongolia and Manchuria. The identity of the Xiongnu is still debated today, although some scholars maintain that they were proto-Mongols, they were more likely a multi-ethnic group of Mongolic and Turkic tribes. It has been suggested that the language of the Huns was related to the Hünnü, the Donghu are mentioned by Sima Qian as already existing in Inner Mongolia north of Yan in 699–632 BCE along with the Shanrong. Mentions in the Yi Zhou Shu and the Classic of Mountains, the Xianbei chieftain was appointed joint guardian of the ritual torch along with Xiong Yi. These early Xianbei came from the nearby Zhukaigou culture in the Ordos Desert, where maternal DNA corresponds to the Mongol Daur people, the Zhukaigou Xianbei had trade relations with the Shang. In the late 2nd century, the Han dynasty scholar Fu Qian wrote in his commentary Jixie that Shanrong, againm in Inner Mongolia another closely connected core Mongolic Xianbei region was the Upper Xiajiadian culture where the Donghu confederation was centered. After the Donghu were defeated by Xiongnu king Modu Chanyu, the Xianbei, tadun Khan of the Wuhuan was the ancestor of the proto-Mongolic Kumo Xi. The Wuhuan are of the direct Donghu royal line and the New Book of Tang says that in 209 BCE, the Xianbei, however, were of the lateral Donghu line and had a somewhat separate identity, although they shared the same language with the Wuhuan. In 49 CE the Xianbei ruler Bianhe raided and defeated the Xiongnu, killing 2000, the Xianbei reached their peak under Tanshihuai Khan who expanded the vast, but short lived, Xianbei state. Three prominent groups split from the Xianbei state as recorded by the Chinese histories, the Rouran, the Khitan people, besides these three Xianbei groups, there were others such as the Murong, Duan and Tuoba
Mongol
–
The
Xianbei state under Tanshihuai (141–181)
Mongol
–
Asia in 500, showing the
Rouran Khaganate and its neighbors, including the Northern Wei and the Tuyuhun Khanate, all of them were established by Proto-Mongols
Mongol
–
Mongols using
Chinese gunpowder bombs during the
Mongol Invasions of Japan, 1281
Mongol
–
The Battle of Oroi-Jalatu in 1755 between the Qing and Oirat armies. The fall of the
Dzungar Khanate.
14.
Jilu Mandarin
–
Jilu or Ji–Lu Mandarin, formerly known as Beifang Mandarin Northern Mandarin, is a dialect of Mandarin Chinese spoken in the Chinese provinces of Hebei and Shandong. Its name is a combination of the names of the two provinces, which derive from ancient local provinces. The names are combined as Ji–Lu Mandarin, although these areas are near Beijing, Ji–Lu has a different accent and many lexical differences from the Beijing dialect, which is the basis for Standard Chinese, the official national language. There are three groups, Bao–Tang, Shi–Ji, and Cang–Hui. Bao–Tang dialect, incorporating a large part of Tianjin and northern part of Hebei province, moreover, the popularization of Standard Chinese in the two provincial capitals has induced changes in the Shi–Ji dialect causing the former to shift rapidly towards the standard language
Jilu Mandarin
–
Ji–Lu Mandarin
15.
Beijing dialect
–
The Beijing dialect, also known as Pekingese, is the dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the basis of Standard Chinese, which is the official language in the Peoples Republic of China and Republic of China. In the Atlas, Beijing Mandarin is divided into four subgroups, Jīngshī, huái–Chéng, on the southeast edge of Beijing around Langfang, Huairou District and other northern districts of the municipality, and the northern part of Hebei, including the city of Chengde. Cháo–Fēng, spoken in a strip between the Huai–Cheng dialects and the Northeast Mandarin area, and including the cities of Chaoyang and Chifeng, shí–Kè or northern Xinjiang, including the cities of Shihezi and Karamay. Dungan language speakers like Iasyr Shivaza and others have reported that Chinese who speak Beijing dialect can understand Dungan, in fundamental structure, the phonology of the Beijing dialect and Standard Chinese are almost identical. In part, this is because the pronunciation of Standard Chinese was based on Beijing pronunciation, most prominent is the proliferation of rhotic vowels. All rhotic vowels are the result of the use of the -儿 /-ɚ/, in Standard Chinese, these also occur but much less often than they appear in Beijing dialect. This phenomenon is known as érhuà or rhotacization, as is considered one of the characteristics of Beijing Mandarin. When /w/ occurs in position, many speakers use before vowels other than as in 我 wǒ. Moreover, Beijing dialect has a few phonetic reductions that are considered too colloquial for use in Standard Chinese. Some of these changes yield syllables that violate the syllable structure of Standard Chinese, such as 大柵欄 Dà Zhàlán Street, the tones of Beijing dialect tend to be more exaggerated than Standard Chinese. Beijing dialect typically uses many words that are considered slang, speakers not native to Beijing may have trouble understanding many or most of these. Many of such slang words employ the rhotic suffix -r, which is known as erhua, 搁 ge - often used in place of 放, meaning to place. 酷 套瓷儿 tàocír – to toss into the hoop, used of basketball 小蜜 xiǎomì – special female friend The Beijing dialect has been studied by linguists including Joseph Edkins and Robert Morrison. There are important dissimilarities between Standard Mandarin and Beijing dialect Mandarin even as Beijing Mandarins phonology is held to be the same as Standard Mandarins, the grammar of the Beijing dialect utilizes colloquial expressions differently from Standard Chinese. In general, Standard Chinese is influenced by Classical Chinese, which makes it more condensed and concise, an example, Standard Chinese, 今天会下雨，所以出门的时候要记得带雨伞。 Jīntiān huì xiàyǔ, suǒyǐ chūmén de shíhou yào jìde dài yǔsan. Translation, It is going to rain today, so remember to bring an umbrella when you go out, Beijing dialect, 今儿得下雨，（所以）出门儿时候记着带雨伞！ Jīnr děi xiàyǔ, chūménr shíhòu jìzhe dài yǔsan. Under the influence of the Beijing dialects phonetic reductions, Jīr děi xiàyǔ, list of Chinese dialects Balfour, Frederic Henry
Beijing dialect
–
Beijing dialect in the broad sense.
16.
Jin Chinese
–
Jin is a group of Chinese spoken by roughly 45 million people in northern China. Its geographical distribution covers most of Shanxi province except for the lower Fen River valley, much of central Inner Mongolia and adjoining areas in Hebei, Henan, and Shaanxi provinces. The status of Jin is disputed among linguists, some prefer to classify it under Mandarin, until the 1980s, Jin was universally considered to be a dialect of Mandarin Chinese. In 1985, however, Li Rong proposed that Jin should be considered a separate top-level grouping, oher linguists have subsequently adopted this classification. Use of a diagnostic feature is inconsistent with the way that all other Chinese dialect groups have been delineated. Certain other Mandarin dialects also preserve the glottal stop, especially the Jianghuai dialects and this is in common with the Early Mandarin of the Yuan Dynasty and with a number of modern southern varieties of Chinese. Syllables closed with a stop in Jin are still toneless, or alternatively. Jin employs extremely complex tone sandhi, or tone changes that occur when words are put together into phrases, the tone sandhi of Jin is notable in two ways among Chinese varieties, Tone sandhi rules depend on the grammatical structure of the words being put together. Hence, a compound may go through different sets of changes compared to a verb–object compound. There are tones that merge when words are pronounced alone, Jin readily employs prefixes such as 圪 /kəʔ/, 忽 /xəʔ/, and 入 /zəʔ/, in a variety of derivational constructions. For example, 入鬼 fool around < 鬼 ghost, devil In addition, there are a number of words in Jin that evolved, evidently, some dialects of Jin make a three-way distinction in demonstratives. Hou Jingyi 侯精一, Shen Ming 沈明, Hou Jingyi 侯精一, ed
Jin Chinese
–
Jinyu written in
Chinese characters
17.
Gross domestic product
–
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
Gross domestic product
–
Selection of GDP PPP data (top 10 countries and blocks) in no particular order
18.
Renminbi
–
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
Renminbi
–
Renminbi banknotes of the 2005 series
Renminbi
–
"People's Bank of China Ten Yuan" written in 5 different languages. From top to bottom and left to right:
Mandarin pinyin,
Mongolian,
Tibetan,
Uyghur, and
Zhuang languages.
Renminbi
–
On November 24, 2010,
Vladimir Putin announces that Russia's bilateral trade with China will be settled in
ruble and
yuan, instead of
U.S. dollars.
Renminbi
–
On October 15, 2013, the
British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announces that the
pound sterling and the renminbi will be traded directly in
London and
Shanghai.
19.
List of Chinese administrative divisions by GDP
–
The article lists Chinas province-level divisions by gross domestic product. Each provinces GDP is listed in both the national currency renminbi, and at nominal US dollar values according to annual average exchange rates, Historical figures and rankings, including purchasing power parity figures, are also given for main years since 1978. Figures for Hong Kong and Macau, which are administrative regions of the PRC. All the CN¥ figures are from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, annual PPP rates are taken from the International Monetary Funds World Economic Outlook databases. The tables below list Chinas provinces and territories by their estimated GDP in main fiscal years since 1978 and their respective ranks and shares of Chinas total GDP are also shown. GDP figures for Hong Kong and Macau SARs are given in both US dollars and in their local currencies. PPP figures are given in Intl, dollars, to enable easy comparison, the following lists Taiwan Area Historical GDP. This is a list of the administrative divisions of Mainland China in order of their total gross domestic product. Currency figures are given in millions,1 USD nominally converts to 6.23 CNY according to the average 2013 exchange rate, and to 3.7603 by purchasing power parity. The Hong Kong and Macau GDP figures are given in US dollars based on purchasing power parity, currency data is based on IMF WEO figures. For the 2013 figures, nominal GDP comparisons are given between each province and sovereign countries with similar GDPs, equivalent countries are listed for both the current and previous year
List of Chinese administrative divisions by GDP
–
Map of China's province-level divisions by GDP (in billions of currency units), according to 2014
National Bureau of Statistics figures
20.
Human Development Index
–
The Human Development Index is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the level is higher. The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, while the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that the IHDI is the actual level of human development, and the HDI can be viewed as an index of potential human development. The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Reports Office of the United Nations Development Programme, nobel laureate Amartya Sen, utilized Haqs work in his own work on human capabilities. The following three indices are used,1, Life Expectancy Index = LE −2085 −20 LEI is 1 when Life expectancy at birth is 85 and 0 when Life expectancy at birth is 20. Education Index = MYSI + EYSI22.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index = MYS15 Fifteen is the maximum of this indicator for 2025. 2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index = EYS18 Eighteen is equivalent to achieving a degree in most countries. Income Index = ln − ln ln − ln II is 1 when GNI per capita is $75,000 and 0 when GNI per capita is $100. Finally, the HDI is the mean of the previous three normalized indices, HDI = LEI ⋅ EI ⋅ II3. Standard of living, as indicated by the logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity. This methodology was used by the UNDP until their 2011 report, the formula defining the HDI is promulgated by the United Nations Development Programme. The 2016 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on March 21,2017, below is the list of the very high human development countries, = increase. The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed relative to the ranking in the 2015 report, the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index is a measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account. The rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data. Countries in the top quartile of HDI with a missing IHDI, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Brunei, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Andorra, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait. The 2015 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on December 14,2015, below is the list of the very high human development countries, = increase. The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed relative to the ranking in the 2014 report, the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index is a measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account. Note, The green arrows, red arrows, and blue dashes represent changes in rank, the rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data
Human Development Index
–
Mahbub ul Haq
Human Development Index
–
Amartya Sen
21.
Simplified Chinese
–
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
Simplified Chinese
–
Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese
–
Simplified Chinese
Simplified Chinese
–
The first batch of Simplified Characters introduced in 1935 consisted of 324 characters.
Simplified Chinese
–
The slogan 战无不胜的毛泽东思想万岁 (Zhàn wúbù shèng de Máo Zédōng sīxiǎng wànsuì; Long live the invincible
Mao Zedong Thought) on
Xinhua Gate in Beijing.
22.
English language
–
English /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/ is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now the global lingua franca. Named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, English is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. It is the third most common language in the world, after Mandarin. It is the most widely learned second language and a language of the United Nations, of the European Union. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch, English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England, Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible, and the start of the Great Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, modern English spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries, English is an Indo-European language, and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Most closely related to English are the Frisian languages, and English, Old Saxon and its descendent Low German languages are also closely related, and sometimes Low German, English, and Frisian are grouped together as the Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic languages. Modern English descends from Middle English, which in turn descends from Old English, particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into a number of other English languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian and Forth and Bargy dialects of Ireland. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares new language features with other Germanic languages such as Dutch, German and these shared innovations show that the languages have descended from a single common ancestor, which linguists call Proto-Germanic. Through Grimms law, the word for foot begins with /f/ in Germanic languages, English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as the palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic. The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon, in the fifth century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain and the Romans withdrew from Britain. England and English are named after the Angles, Old English was divided into four dialects, the Anglian dialects, Mercian and Northumbrian, and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon. Through the educational reforms of King Alfred in the century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex. The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the period of Old English were written using a runic script. By the sixth century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms and it included the runic letters wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩
English language
–
The opening to the Old English epic poem
Beowulf,
handwritten in
half-uncial script: Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon... "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."
English language
–
Countries of the world where English is a majority native language
English language
–
Title page of Geoffrey Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales c.1400
23.
Chinese language
–
Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
Chinese language
–
The
Tripitaka Koreana, a Korean collection of the
Chinese Buddhist canon
Chinese language
–
Hànyǔ (Chinese) written in
traditional (left) and
simplified (right) characters
Chinese language
–
"
Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion " by
Wang Xizhi, written in
semi-cursive style
24.
Standard Chinese
–
Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
Standard Chinese
–
A poster outside of high school in
Yangzhou urges people to speak Putonghua
Standard Chinese
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Zhongguo Guanhua (中国官话/中國官話), or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by
Étienne Fourmont (with
Arcadio Huang) in 1742
25.
Hanyu 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
Hanyu Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Hanyu Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
26.
Bopomofo
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Zhuyin fuhao, Zhuyin or Bopomofo is a system of phonetic notation for the transcription of spoken Chinese, particularly the Mandarin dialect. The first two are traditional terms, whereas Bopomofo is the term, also used by the ISO. Consisting of 37 characters and four marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin. Zhuyin was introduced in China by the Republican Government in the 1910s and used alongside the Wade-Giles system, the Wade system was replaced by Hanyu Pinyin in 1958 by the Government of the Peoples Republic of China, and at the International Organization for Standardization in 1982. The informal name Bopomofo is derived from the first four syllables in the ordering of available syllables in Mandarin Chinese. The four Bopomofo characters that correspond to these syllables are placed first in a list of these characters. The same sequence is used by other speakers of Chinese to refer to other phonetic systems. The original formal name of the system was Guóyīn Zìmǔ and Zhùyīn Zìmǔ and it was later renamed Zhùyīn Fúhào, meaning phonetic symbols. In official documents, Zhuyin is occasionally called Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I, in English translations, the system is often also called either Chu-yin or the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols. A romanized phonetic system was released in 1984 as Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II, the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, led by Wu Zhihui from 1912 to 1913, created a system called Zhuyin Zimu, which was based on Zhang Binglins shorthand. A draft was released on July 11,1913, by the Republic of China National Ministry of Education and it was later renamed first Guoyin Zimu and then, in April 1930, Zhuyin Fuhao. The last renaming addressed fears that the system might independently replace Chinese characters. Zhuyin remains the predominant phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in school in Taiwan. It is also one of the most popular ways to enter Chinese characters into computers and smartphones, in elementary school, particularly in the lower years, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with Zhuyin as ruby characters as an aid to learning. Additionally, one newspaper in Taiwan, the Mandarin Daily News. In teaching Mandarin, Taiwan institutions and some communities use Zhuyin as a learning tool. The Zhuyin characters were created by Zhang Binglin, and taken mainly from regularised forms of ancient Chinese characters, the modern readings of which contain the sound that each letter represents. It is to be noted that the first consonants are articulated from the front of the mouth to the back, /b/, /p/, /m/, /f/, /d/, /t/, /n/, Zhuyin is written in the same stroke order rule as Chinese characters
Bopomofo
–
An example of a Zhuyin keypad for Taiwan.
Bopomofo
–
Table showing Zhuyin in
Gwoyeu Romatzyh.
27.
Wu Chinese
–
Wu is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province and bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Wu speakers, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei, occupied positions of great importance in modern Chinese culture and politics. Wu can also be found being used in Shaoxing opera, which is only in national popularity to Peking opera, as well as in the performances of the popular entertainer. Wu is also spoken in a number of diaspora communities, with significant centers of immigration originating from Shanghai, Qingtian. Suzhou has traditionally been the center of Wu and was likely the first place the distinct variety of Sinitic known as Wu developed. Suzhou dialect is considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. Due to the influence of Shanghainese, Wu as a whole is incorrectly labelled in English as simply, Shanghainese, among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech, Ngu nung nioe ngiu, Wu varieties have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghais Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities, Wu Chinese, along with Min, is also of great significance to historical linguists due to their retention of many ancient features. These two languages have proven pivotal in determining the history of the Chinese languages. More pressing concerns of the present are those of language preservation, however, many analysts believe that a stable state of diglossia will endure for at least several generations if not indefinitely. Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Romance language and it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch. They do this by affixing 話 Wo to their locations endonym, for example, 溫州話 Wēnzhōuhuà is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 xiánhuà is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, Wu, the formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature. Northern Wu, Wu typically spoken in the north of Zhejiang and it by default includes the Xuanzhou division in Anhui as well, however this division is often neglected in Northern Wu discussions. Southern Wu, Wu spoken in southern Zhejiang and periphery, comprising the Oujiang, Wuzhou, Western Wu, A term gaining in usage as a synonym for the Xuanzhou division and modeled after the previous two terms since the Xuanzhou division is less representative of Northern Wu. Shanghainese, is also a common name, used because Shanghai is the most well-known city in the Wu-speaking region. The term Shanghainese is never used by linguists to refer to anything
Wu Chinese
–
Wu (Wú Yǔ) written in
Chinese characters
28.
Hakka Chinese
–
Hakka is not mutually intelligible with Yue, Wu, Southern Min, Mandarin or other branches of Chinese, and itself contains a few mutually unintellegible varieties. It is most closely related to Gan and is classified as a variety of Gan. There is also a possibility that the similarities are just a result of shared areal features, Taiwan, where Hakka is the native language of a significant minority of the islands residents, is a center for the study and preservation of the language. Pronunciation differences exist between the Taiwanese Hakka dialects and Mainland Chinas Hakka dialects, even in Taiwan, two local varieties of Hakka exist. The Meixian dialect of northeast Guangdong in China has been taken as the dialect by the Peoples Republic of China. The Guangdong Provincial Education Department created a romanization of Moiyen in 1960. The name of the Hakka people who are the predominant original native speakers of the variety literally means guest families or guest people, Hak 客 means guest, and ka 家 means family. Among themselves, Hakka people variously called their language Hak-ka-fa 客家話, Hak-fa, 客話, Tu-gong-dung-fa 土廣東話, literally Native Guangdong language, and Ngai-fa 我話, My/our language. The forebears of the Hakka came from present-day Central Plains provinces of Henan and Shaanxi, the presence of many archaic features occur in modern Hakka, including final consonants -p -t -k, as are found in other modern southern Chinese varieties, but which have been lost in Mandarin. Due to the migration of its speakers, Hakka may have influenced by other language areas through which the Hakka-speaking forebears migrated. For instance, common vocabulary is found in Hakka, Min, in recent times, many She people have become Hakka speakers. A regular pattern of change can generally be detected in Hakka, as in most Chinese varieties. Some examples, Characters such as 武 or 屋, are pronounced roughly mwio and uk in Early Middle Chinese, have an initial v phoneme in Hakka, being vu and vuk in Hakka respectively. Like in Mandarin, labiodentalisation process also changed mj- to a sound in Hakka before grave vowels. Middle Chinese initial phonemes /ɲ/ of the characters 人 and 日, among others, for comparison, in Mandarin, /ɲ/ became r-, while in Cantonese, it merged with initial /j/. The initial consonant phoneme exhibited by the character 話 is pronounced f or v in Hakka, the initial consonant of 學 hɔk usually corresponds with an h approximant in Hakka and a voiceless alveo-palatal fricative in Mandarin. Hakka has as many regional dialects as there are counties with Hakka speakers as the majority, some of these Hakka dialects are not mutually intelligible with each other. Surrounding Meixian are the counties of Pingyuan, Dabu, Jiaoling, Xingning, Wuhua, each is said to have its own special phonological points of interest
Hakka Chinese
–
Hak-kâ-fa/Hak-kâ-va (Hakka/Kejia) written in
Chinese characters
29.
Cantonese
–
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
Cantonese
–
Street in
Chinatown, San Francisco. Cantonese has traditionally been the dominant Chinese variant among Chinese populations in the Western world.
Cantonese
–
Gwóngdūng Wah / gwong 2 dung 1 waa 6 (Cantonese) written in
traditional Chinese (left) and
simplified Chinese (right) characters
Cantonese
–
Chinese dictionary from Tang dynasty. Modern Cantonese pronunciation is more similar to Middle Chinese from this era than other Chinese varieties.
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Héběi; postal: Hopeh) is a province of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "冀" (Jì), named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province (zhou) that included what is now southern Hebei. The name Hebei literally means "north of the river",[4] referring to its location entirely to the north of the Huang He 黄河 (Yellow River).[5]
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Chih-Li". Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 133.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
Hebei (surrounds 
