1.
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
2.
Provinces of China
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Provinces, formally provincial-level administrative divisions or first-level administrative divisions, are the highest-level Chinese administrative divisions. There are 34 such divisions, classified as 23 provinces, four municipalities, five autonomous regions, the Peoples Republic of China claims sovereignty over the territory administered by the Republic of China, claiming most of it as its Taiwan Province. The ROC also administers some offshore islands which form Fujian Province and these were part of an originally unified Fujian province, which since the stalemate of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 has been divided between the PRC and ROC. Note that every province has a Communist Party of China provincial committee, the committee secretary is in effective charge of the province, rather than the nominal governor of the provincial government. The government of each province is nominally led by a provincial committee. The committee secretary is first-in-charge of the province, second-in-command is the governor of the provincial government, the Peoples Republic of China claims the island of Taiwan and its surrounding islets, including Penghu, as Taiwan Province. The territory is controlled by the Republic of China, a municipality or direct-controlled municipality is a higher level of city which is directly under the Chinese government, with status equal to that of the provinces. In practice, their status is higher than that of common provinces. The governor of each region is usually appointed from the respective minority ethnic group. A special administrative region is an autonomous and self-governing subnational subject of the Peoples Republic of China that is directly under the Central Peoples Government. Each SAR has an executive as head of the region. The regions government is not fully independent, as policy and military defence are the responsibility of the central government. Notes,1, as of 20102, per km23, km24, Abbreviation in the parentheses is informal 5, Since founding in 1949, however, the PRC has never controlled Taiwan. Taiwan currently administers Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, the subject of whether or not Taiwan is part of China is often debated, with no clear conclusion. The Ming Dynasty kept the system set up by the Yuan Dynasty, however. By the time of the establishment of the Qing Dynasty in 1644 there were 18 provinces, in addition, there was a zongdu, a general military inspector or governor general, for every two to three provinces. Outer regions of China were not divided into provinces, military leaders or generals oversaw Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, while vice-dutong and civilian leaders headed the leagues, a subdivision of Mongolia. The ambans supervised the administration of Tibet, in 1884 Xinjiang became a province, in 1907 Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang were made provinces as well
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Dongting Lake
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Dongting Lake is a large, shallow lake in northeastern Hunan province, China. It is a basin of the Yangtze River. Hence the lakes size depends on the season, the provinces of Hubei and Hunan are named after their location relative to the lake, Hubei means North of the Lake and Hunan, South of the Lake. Dongting Lake is famous in Chinese culture as the place of origin of dragon boat racing and it is the site of Junshan Island and is a home to the Finless Porpoise, which is endangered in China. In the July–September period, flood water from the Yangtze flows into the lake, the lake is also fed by four major rivers, the Xiang, Zi, Yuan and Li rivers. Small rivers also flow in, the most famous one being Miluo River where a famous poet Qu Yuan committed suicide, in addition, the Xiao River flows into the Xiang near Yongzhou, before the Xiang flows into the lake. Ocean-going vessels can travel through the Xiang to reach Changsha, the earliest rice paddies yet discovered in the world were in the Liyang plain, which was then on the western edge of Dongting lake. The state of Chu occupied the region in the Eastern Zhou period, during the Han Dynasty, Yunmeng Marsh, which lies to the north of Dongting Lake in Hubei Province, served as the main flood-basin of the Yangtze. The rich sediment of the marsh attracted farmers, embankments were built, keeping the river out, and the Dongting Lake area south of the Yangtze gradually became the rivers main flood-basin. The Han state was involved in the colonization of the region. At that time, Dongting Lake was Chinas largest freshwater lake, because of its size, it gained the name Eight-hundred-li-Dongting. Nowadays, it is the second-largest, after Poyang Lake, as much of the lake has been turned into farmland, the area is well known in Chinese history and literature. Dragon boat racing is said to have begun on the shores of Dongting Lake as a search for the body of Qu Yuan, the Chu poet. Junshan Island, formerly a Daoist retreat, is a famous one-kilometer island with 72 peaks in the middle of the lake, the island is also famous for its Junshan Yinzhen tea. The basin of Dongting Lake and its area is famous for its scenic beauty. The scenery of the Jiuyi Mountains and of the Xiao and Xiang rivers below is often mentioned in Chinese poetry, the late Tang Dynasty poet Yu Wuling is supposed to have been fond of the scenery of Dongting Lake. During the Song Dynasty, it became the fashion to paint this regions scenery in a set of eight scenes, the fashion spread to Japan, where eventually other famous places were substituted for the Xiao and Xiang rivers. One of the famous ponds based on the geography of the lake is at the Daikaku-ji in Kyoto, the agricultural colonization of the region began in ancient times, and by the 19th century much of the lakes shallower areas had been destroyed to create farmland
5.
Changsha
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Changsha is the capital of Hunan province, south central China. It covers 11,819 km2 and is bordered by Yueyang and Yiyang to the north, Loudi to the west, Xiangtan and Zhuzhou to the south, Yichun and Pingxiang of Jiangxi province to the east. According to 2010 Census, Changsha has 7,044,118 residents and it has a moist monsoon climate of the subtropical zone. The average annual air temperature is 16. 8–17.3 °C, Changsha is famous for that it was the capital of Changsha State in the Han Dynasty, and the capital of Chu State in Ten Kingdoms period. The lacquerware and Silk Texts recovered from Mawangdui there are an indication of the richness of local craft traditions, in 1904, Changsha was opened to foreign trade, and large numbers of Europeans and Americans settled there. Changsha was the site of Mao Zedongs conversion to communism and it was also the scene of major battles in the Sino-Japanese War and was briefly occupied by the Japanese. Nowadays, Changsha is an important commercial, manufacturing and transportation center in China, the origins of the name Changsha are lost in antiquity. In the 2nd century AD, historian Ying Shao wrote that the Qin dynasty use of the name Changsha for the area was a continuance of its old name, archeologial evidence provides evidence of settlement 150,000 to 200,000 BC. Development occurred drastically closer to 3000BC when Changsha developed with the proliferation of Longshan culture, despite this, pottery and bronze ware have been discovered. In the Central Plain region during the Zhou and Shang dynasties, Sima Qian writes in his Records of the Grand Historian Huangdi, loving his Shaohao, gave him a parcel of land, an area amounted to Changsha and surrounding land. Evidence exists that people lived and thrived in the area during the Bronze Age, numerous examples of pottery and items of interest were discovered and recovered. Changsha entered a time of turmoil, eastern Zhous collapse swept in turmoil with the Spring and Autumn Period. The Yue culture spread and took a stronghold through the region, during the height of the Warring States Period, the Chu Kingdom took a hardline nationalist and reform approach and took a large-scale military operations in South China. Chu Kingdom took control of Changsha and turned the city into an important part of the part of Chu. After years of war and occupation, Changsha slowly replaced Yue culture with Chu culture, nobles created tombs and got buried in tombs. In 1951-1957, archaeologists explored numerous large and medium-sized Chu tombs from the warring states era, there have been more than 3,000 tombs discovered of various people. The coming of Chu brought a lot of tools and production experience, massive changes quickly propelled Changsha through the Iron Age and into the feudal age of society. The city is sometimes called Qingyang in Warring States period texts, the slow wearing of time, turbulence, and turmoil weakened the Changsha and the region
6.
Prefectures of the People's Republic of China
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Prefectures, formally prefecture-level divisions as a term in the context of China, are used to refer to several unrelated political divisions in both ancient and modern China. There are 333 prefecture-level divisions in China and they include 17 prefectures and 283 prefecture-level cities. Other than provincial level divisions, prefectural level divisions are not mentioned in the Chinese constitution, the prefectural government is an administrative branch office with the rank of a national ministerial department and dispatched by the higher-level provincial government. The leader of the government, titled as prefectural commissioner, is appointed by the provincial government. The prefectures working committee of the committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference is a part of the prefectures committee of the CPPCC. This means that the working committee of CPPCC is a branch of the provincial committee of CPPCC. The same is valid for provincial CPPCC, which are sections of the national CPPCC. Prefectures are administrative subdivisions of provincial-level divisions, the term prefecture was developed from the former Circuit, which was a level between the provincial and the county level during the Qing dynasty. Consequently, in 1932, provinces were subdivided into several prefectures. At one point, prefectures were the most common type of prefecture-level division, today they have been mostly converted into prefecture-level cities, and the trend is still ongoing with only 8 prefectures remaining in China. Prefecture-level cities are municipalities that are given prefecture status and the right to govern surrounding counties, in practice, prefecture-level cities are so large that they are just like any other prefectures, and not cities in the traditional sense of the word at all. Prefecture-level cities are the most common type of division in mainland China today. Leagues are the prefectures of Inner Mongolia, the name comes from a kind of ancient Mongolian administrative unit used during the Qing Dynasty in Mongolia. To preempt any sense of Mongolian unity or solidarity, the Qing Dynasty executed divide, Leagues had no true ruler-ship, they only had conventional assemblies consisting of banners. During the ROC era, the leagues had an equivalent to provinces. Leagues contain banners, equivalent to counties, after the establishment of the provincial-level Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 1947, leagues of Inner Mongolia became equal to prefectures in other provinces and autonomous regions. The governments of the league, is the branch office dispatched by Peoples Government of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The leader of the government, titled as league leader, is appointed by Peoples Government of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
7.
Counties of the People's Republic of China
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There are 1,464 counties in Mainland China out of a total of 2,862 county-level divisions. Xian have existed since the Warring States period, and were established nationwide during the Qin Dynasty, the term xian is usually translated as districts or prefectures when put in the context of Chinese history. This article, however, will try to keep the terminology consistent with the modern translation, xian have existed since the Warring States period and were set up nationwide by the Qin Dynasty. The number of counties in China proper gradually increased from dynasty to dynasty, as Qin Shi Huang reorganized the counties after his unification, there were about 1,000. Under the Eastern Han Dynasty, the number of counties increased to above 1,000, about 1400 existed when the Sui dynasty abolished the commandery level, which was the level just above counties, and demoted some commanderies to counties. The current number of counties mostly resembled that of the years of Qing Dynasty. Changes of location and names of counties in Chinese history have been a field of research in Chinese historical geography. Government below the county level was often undertaken through informal non-bureaucratic means, the head of a county was the magistrate, who oversaw both the day-to-day operations of the county as well as civil and criminal cases. Autonomous counties are a class of counties in Mainland China reserved for non-Han Chinese ethnic minorities. Autonomous counties are all over China, and are given, by law. There are 117 autonomous counties in Mainland China, as the Communist Party of China is central to directing government policy in Mainland China, every level of administrative division has a local CPC Committee. A countys is called the CPC County Committee and the called the Secretary. Policies are carried out via the Peoples government of the county, the governor is often also one of the deputy secretaries in the CPC Committee. County List of counties in the Peoples Republic of China List of county-level divisions of China History of the divisions of China
8.
Townships of the People's Republic of China
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Townships, formally township-level divisions, are the basic level of political divisions in China. They are similar to municipalities and communes in other countries and in turn may contain village committees and villages, in 1995 there were 29,502 townships and 17,532 towns in China. Much like other levels of government in mainland China, the governance is divided between the Communist Party Township Secretary, and the county magistrate. The township party secretary, along with the party committee. The magistrate is in charge of administering the affairs of government. A township official is the lowest-level ranked official in the civil service hierarchy, in practice, however, a town is larger, often more populous, and less remote than a township. de http, //chinadataonline. org/cgepublic/cityclient16/
9.
Party chief of the Communist Party of China
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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
10.
Han Chinese
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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
11.
Tujia people
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The Tujia, with a total population of over 8 million, is the 8th largest ethnic minority in the Peoples Republic of China. They live in the Wuling Mountains, straddling the borders of Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou Provinces. The endonym Bizika means native dwellers, in Chinese, Tujia means also local, as distinguished from the Hakka whose name implies wandering. The Ba Kingdom reached the zenith of its power between 600 BC and 400 BC but was destroyed by the Qin in 316 BC. After being referred to by a succession of different names in ancient documents. The Tujia tusi chieftains reached the zenith of their power under the Ming Dynasty and they achieved this through their reputation as providers of fierce, highly disciplined fighting men, who were employed by the emperor to suppress revolts by other minorities. On numerous occasions, they helped defend China against outside invaders. The Manchus invaded and conquered the Ming in 1644 and established the Great Qing Empire, ever suspicious of local rulers, the Qing emperors always tried to replace Han officials with Manchu officials wherever they could. In the early 18th century, the Qing court finally felt secure enough to direct control over minority areas as well. This process, known as gaituguiliu, was carried out throughout south-west China gradually and, in general, the court adopted a carrot-and-stick approach of lavish pensions for compliant chieftains, coupled with a huge show of military force on the borders of their territories. Most of the Tujia areas returned to control during the period 1728-1735. With the weakening of central Qing rule, numerous large-scale uprisings occurred culminating in the Taiping Rebellion which affected the area badly, following the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the Tujia found themselves caught between various competing warlords. More and more land was given over to the cultivation of high-earning opium at the insistence of wealthy landlords, after the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, Tujia areas came under Communist control, and banditry was rapidly eradicated. The Great Leap Forward led to famine in Tujia communities. The Tujia were officially recognised as one of the 55 ethnic minorities in January 1957, State Councillor Dai Bingguo, one of Chinas top officials on foreign policy, is the most prominent Tujia in the Chinese government. Today, traditional Tujia customs can only be found in the most remote areas and they are also famous for their richly-patterned brocade, known as xilankapu, a product that in earlier days regularly figured in their tribute payments to the Chinese court. Regarding religion, most of the Tujia worship a white tiger totem, Tujia is a Tibeto-Burman language and is usually considered an isolate within this group, although it has grammatical and phonological similarities with Yi. Today there are at most 70,000 native speakers of the Tujia language, most of live in the northern parts Xiangxi Tujia
12.
Hmong people
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The Hmong/Mong is an ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. The Hmong are also one of the sub-groups of the Miao ethnicity in China, the Hmong began a gradual southward migration in China in the 18th century due to political unrest and to find more arable land. This CIA operation is known as the Secret War, which occurred during the Vietnam War, following the war, hundreds of thousands of Hmong refugees fled to Thailand to seek political asylum. Thousands of these refugees have resettled in Western countries in two separate waves, the first wave resettled in the late 1970s, mostly in the United States, but also in Australia, France, French Guiana, Canada, and Argentina. Others have returned to Laos under United Nations-sponsored repatriation programs and those who resisted resettlement in the West actively fought against government officials to be left alone in Thailand. The remnant from the first wave managed to ask for protection from Wat Thamkrabok and this second wave, an approximation of 15,000 Hmong refugees including children at Wat Thamkrabok, resettled mainly in the U. S. since Summer 2004. Hmong people have their own terms for their subcultural divisions, Hmong Der and Hmong Leng are the terms for two of the largest groups in the United States and Southeast Asia. In the Romanized Popular Alphabet, developed in the 1950s in Laos, the final consonants indicate with which of the eight lexical tones the word is pronounced. White Hmong and Leng Hmong speak mutually intelligible dialects of the Hmong language, with differences in pronunciation. One of the most characteristic differences is the use of the voiceless /m̥/ in White Hmong, voiceless nasals are not found in the Leng Hmong dialect. Hmong groups are named after the dominant colors or patterns of their traditional clothing, style of head-dress. The Hmong groups in Laos, from the 18th century to the present day, are known as Black Hmong, Striped Hmong, White Hmong, Leng Hmong and Green Hmong. In other places in Asia, groups are known as Black Hmong, Striped Hmong, Hmong Shi, Hmong Pe, Hmong Pua. These include the Flower Hmong or the Variegated Hmong, so named because of the bright colorful embroidery, many Hmong people migrated from Laos to Thailand following the victory of the Pathet Lao in 1975. While some ended up in camps, others settled in mountainous areas becoming one of the ethnic groups in Thailand referred to as Hill Tribes in that country. Since 1949, Miao has been a term for one of the 55 official minority groups recognized by the government of the Peoples Republic of China. The Miao live mainly in southern China, in the provinces of Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Hainan, Guangdong, according to the 2000 censuses, the number of Miao in China was estimated to be about 9.6 million. The Miao nationality includes Hmong people as well as culturally and linguistically related ethnic groups who do not call themselves Hmong
13.
Kam people
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Dong, a Kam–Sui people of southern China, are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the Peoples Republic of China. They are famed for their native-bred Kam Sweet Rice, carpentry skills, the Kam people live mostly in eastern Guizhou, western Hunan, and northern Guangxi in China. Small pockets of Kam speakers are found in Tuyên Quang Province in Vietnam, the Kam are thought to be the modern-day descendants of the ancient Liáo peoples who occupied much of southern China. Kam legends generally maintain that the ancestors of the Kam migrated from the east, according to the migration legends of the Southern Kam people, their ancestors came from Guangzhou, Guangdong and Wuzhou, Guangxi. The Northern Kam maintain that their ancestors fled Zhejiang and Fujian because of locust swarms, many Kam rebellions took place during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but none were successful in the long run. Although the Kam and Han Chinese peoples generally get along well today, today, many Kam are assimilating into mainstream Chinese society as rural Kam move into urban areas, resulting in intermarriage with the Han Chinese and the loss of the Kam language. The Kam language is a Tai–Kadai language, ethnologue distinguishes between two Kam languages, with the codes kmc for Southern Kam and doc for Northern Kam. Sui, Maonan, and Mulao are the languages most closely related to Kam, the Kam people sometimes use Chinese characters to represent the sounds of Kam words. A Latin alphabet was developed in 1958, but it is not much in use due to a lack of printed material, the Kam Grand Choir has been listed by UNESCO as a world-class intangible cultural heritage since 2009. Kam choral songs include songs, narratives, and childrens songs. One-part songs can be sung by one or many people, two famous Kam playwrights are Wu Wencai, author of Mei Liangyu, and Zhang Honggan. Kam oral literature contains an array of legends and folk tales. Many of these tales are about the leaders of past uprisings. Celebrated leaders include, Xing Ni - An ancient figure, whose legend dates possibly from the Tang Dynasty, Wu Mian - Leader of a 1378 rebellion during the Ming Dynasty due to drought and famine. Lin Kuan - Led a 1397 rebellion but was later executed, Popular among the Northern Kam and is commemorated by an ancient tree. Wu Jinyin - Wu revolted in the 1740 to resist grain taxes, Popular folk tales are listed below. They can be found in The Kam People of China by D. Norman Geary, village elders were traditionally the village leaders, although the government replaced these elders with village heads from 1911 to 1949. Kam society was also traditionally matriarchal, as can be evidenced by the cult of the goddess Sa Sui, before the advent of the Han Chinese, the Kam had no surnames, instead distinguishing each other by their fathers names
14.
Yao people
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The Yao people is a government classification for various minorities in China and Vietnam. They are one of the 55 officially recognised ethnic minorities in China and reside in the terrain of the southwest. They also form one of the 54 ethnic groups officially recognised by Vietnam, in the last census in 2000, they numbered 2,637,421 in China and roughly 470,000 in Vietnam. The origins of the Yao can be traced back 2000 years starting in Hunan, the Yao and Hmong were among the rebels during the Miao Rebellions against the Ming dynasty. As the Han Chinese expanded into South China, the Yao retreated into the highlands between Hunan and Guizhou to the north and Guangdong and Guangxi to the south, and stretching into eastern Yunnan, around 1890, the Guangdong government started taking action against Yao in northwestern Guangdong. During the Laotian Civil War, Yao tribes of Laos had a relationship with U. S. forces and were dubbed to be an efficient friendly force. They fought in favour of government against the communists and this relationship caused the new communist Laotian government to target Yao tribal groups for revenge once the war was over. This triggered further immigration into Thailand, where the tribes would be put into camps along the Thailand-Laos border, after obtaining refugee status from the Thai government and with the help of the United Nations, many Yao people were able to obtain sponsorship into the United States. Most of the Yao who have immigrated to the United States have settled along the Western part of the U. S, see Mien American for those identified as Mien. Yao society is patrilineal, with sons inheriting from their fathers. Marriage between first cousins is common, the Yao people have been farmers for over a thousand years, mostly rice cultivation through plowing, although a few practice slash-and-burn agriculture. Where the Yao live nearby forested regions, they engage in hunting. During the Southern Song, an imperial Chinese observer, Zhou Qufei, the Yao celebrate their Pan Wang festival annually on the sixteenth day of the tenth lunar month. The festival celebrates the mythical story of the Yao people. Daoism has historically been important to the Yao, jinag Yingliang, in a 1948 study, argued that Yao religion was characterized by a process of Han Chinese-influenced Daoisation, the endurance of pre-Daoist folk religion, and some Buddhist beliefs. The description of Yao region is similar to the definition of Chinese folk religion as described by Arthur Wolf and Steve Sangren. Scholar Zhang Youjun takes issue with claims of strong Buddhist influence on the Yao, arguing that although Yao ritual texts contain Buddhist expression, there are several distinct groups within the Yao nationality, and they speak several different languages, The Iu Mien comprise 70% of the Yao population. There are around 60,000 Yao in northern Thailand, where they are one of the six main hill tribes, the lowland-living Lanten of Laos, who speak Kim Mun, and the highland-living Iu Mien of Laos are two different Yao groups
15.
Xiang Chinese
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Scholars divided Xiang into five subgroups, Chang-Yi, Lou-Shao, Hengzhou, Chen-Xu and Yong-Quan. Among those, Lou-shao, also known as Old Xiang, still exhibits the three-way distinction of Middle Chinese obstruents, preserving the voiced stops, fricatives, Some examples of Xiang speakers are Mao Zedong, Zuo Zongtang, Huang Xing and Ma Ying-jeou. During Qin and Han dynasty, most part of todays Eastern Hunan belonged to Changsha-Xian/Changsha-Guo, according to Yang Xiongs Fangyan, people in this region spoke Southern Chu, which is considered the ancestor of Xiang Chinese today. During the Tang dynasty, a large-scale emigration took place with people emigrating from the north to the south, todays Xiang still keeps some Middle Chinese words, such as 嬉, 薅, 行. Entering tone vowels started weakening in Hunan at this time, the late Yuan Dynasty peasant uprising caused a great many casualties in Hunan. During the Ming dynasty, an emigration from Jiangxi to Hunan took place. Gan, which was brought by settlers from Jiangxi, influenced Xiang, the speech in east Hunan differentiated into New Xiang during that period. Quanzhou County became part of Guangxi province after the adjustment of administrative divisions in the Ming Dynasty, Some features of Xiang at that time were kept in this region. Since the classification of Yuan Jiahua, Xiang has been considered one of seven groups of varieties of Chinese. Jerry Norman classified Xiang, Gan and Wu, as central groups, in Xiang dialects, the voiced initials of Middle Chinese yield unaspirated initials in all tone categories. A few varieties have retained voicing in all tones, but most have voiceless initials in some or all tone categories, pervasive influence from Mandarin dialects has made Xiang dialects difficult to classify. Xiang is traditionally divided into New Xiang, in which voicing has been lost completely, and Old Xiang varieties, changsha dialect is usually taken as representative of New Xiang, while Shuangfeng dialect represents Old Xiang. Indeed, Zhou Zhenhe and You Rujie classified New Xiang as part of Southwestern Mandarin, within New Xiang and Old Xiang, there are also many different sub-dialects. The Language Atlas of China identified a subgroup, Ji-Xu in some places of Western Hunan. Bao & Chen split out part of New Xiang as a new Hengzhou Xiang subgroup and they also reclassified parts of the Ji–Xu subgroup as Southwest Mandarin, renaming the remainder of the subgroup as Chen-Xu Xiang. Their five subgroups are, New Xiang voiced initials in Middle Chinese become unaspirated voicless consonant, most of the dialects of New Xiang retain the entering tone as a separate category. Old Xiang Voiced initials still exist, the entering tone does not exist in most of the dialects. Chen-Xu Xiang Some of the consonants are retained
16.
Gan Chinese
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Gan is a member of the Sinitic languages of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and Hakka is the closest Chinese variety to Gan in terms of phonetics. Different dialects of Gan exist, the Nanchang dialect is taken as representative. Like all other varieties of Chinese, there is an amount of mutual unintelligibility between Gan Chinese and other varieties. Within the variation of Chinese dialects, Gan has more similarities with Mandarin than with Yue or Min, scholars in mainland China use Gan or Gan dialect. Jiāngxī huà is commonly used in Chinese, but since the borders of the language do not follow the borders of the province, this name is not geographically exact. Xi, an ancient name, now used, arising from the fact that most Gan speakers live south of the Yangtze River. Most Gan speakers live in the middle and lower reaches of the Gan River, the area of the Fu River. There are also many Gan speakers living in eastern Hunan, eastern Hubei, southern Anhui, northwest Fujian, in the early years of the Han Dynasty, Nanchang was established as the capital of the Yuzhang Commandery, along with the 18 counties of Jiangxi Province. The population of the Yuzhang Commandery increased to 1,670,000 from 350,000, the Yuzhang Commandery ranked fourth in population among the more than 100 contemporary commanderies of China. As the largest commandery of Yangzhou, Yuzhang accounted for two fifths of the population and Gan gradually took shape during this period, as a result of continuous warfare in the region of central China, the first large-scale emigration in the history of China took place. Large numbers of people in central China relocated to southern China in order to escape the bloodshed and at this time, also, during this period, ancient Gan began to be exposed to the northern Mandarin dialects. After centuries of rule by the Southern Dynasties, Gan still retained many original characteristics despite having absorbed some elements of Mandarin, up until the Tang Dynasty, there was little difference between old Gan and the contemporary Gan of that era. During this period, following hundreds of years of migration, Gan spread to its current areas of distribution, Guanhua evolved into a standard language based on Beijing Mandarin, owing largely to political factors. At the same time, the differences between Gan and Guan-hua continued to more pronounced. However, because Jiangxi borders on Jianghuai, a Guanhua, Xiang, after 1949, as a dialect in Mainland China, Gan faced a critical period. The impact of Mandarin is quite evident today as a result of governmental language campaigns. Currently, many youths are unable to master Gan expressions, there are differences within the Gan speaking region. For example, in Anfu county, which was categorized as Ji-Cha, people from one region cannot even understand people from the other region if they were not well educated or exposed to the other dialects
17.
Southwestern Mandarin
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Some forms of Southwest Mandarin are not entirely mutually intelligible with Standard Mandarin Chinese or other forms of Mandarin. Varieties of Southwestern Mandarin are spoken by roughly 200 million people, if removed from the larger Mandarin Chinese group, it would have the 8th-most native speakers in the world, behind Mandarin itself, Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Arabic and Bengali. Modern Southwestern Mandarin was formed by the waves of immigrants brought to the regions during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, because of this comparatively recent move, these dialects show more similarity to modern Standard Mandarin than to other varieties of Chinese like Cantonese or Hokkien. The Chengdu-Chongqing and Hubei dialects are believed to reflect aspects of the Mandarin lingua franca spoken during the Ming Dynasty, however, some scholars believe its origins may be more similar to Lower Yangtze Mandarin. Southwestern Mandarin is the language in the Kokang district in Northern Myanmar. Southwestern Mandarin is also one of two languages of the Wa State, an unrecognised autonomous state within Myanmar, alongside Wa language. Because Wa has no form, Chinese is the official working language of the Wa State government. Some of its speakers live in Thailand and it is also spoken in parts of Northern Vietnam. Ethnic minorities in Vietnams Lao Cai Province used to speak Southwestern Mandarin to each other when their languages were not mutually intelligible, Southwestern Mandarin is also used between different ethnic minorities in Yunnan. Most Southwestern Mandarin dialects have, like Standard Mandarin, only retained four of the eight tones of Middle Chinese. However, the tone has completely merged with the light-level tone in most Southwestern dialects. Southwestern Mandarin dialects do not possess the retroflex consonants of Standard Mandarin, most have lost the distinction between the nasal consonant /n/ and the lateral consonant /l/ and the nasal finals /-n/ and /-ŋ/. For example, the sounds la and na are generally indistinguishable, as well as the sounds fen, some varieties also lack a distinction between the labiodental sound /f/ and the glottal /h/
18.
Waxiang Chinese
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Waxiang is a divergent variety of Chinese, spoken by the Waxiang people, an unrecognized ethnic minority group in the northwestern part of Hunan province, China. Waxiang is a language, very different from its surrounding Southwestern Mandarin, Xiang. Waxiang may share some lexical innovations with Bai, suggesting a possible Macro-Bai substratum and it has also been suggested that perhaps Waxiang is a mixed language of Xiang and Miao. The word Wa 瓦 is only a phonetic transcription, wu & Shen report Waxianghua to be spoken in the following villages. Liubaohua is spoken in the following locations, Guzhang County Shanzao Township 山枣乡, Huoma 火麻村, Gaozhai 高寨村, Shaojitian 筲箕田村, Modao 磨刀村 Yantouzhai Township 岩头寨乡, Yinping 银坪村, Zimuping 梓木坪村, Wangouxi 碗沟溪村, etc.2010. An Investigative Report of Waxianghua of Guzhang County, Xiangxi Prefecture, hilary Chappell, Typology of an isolated Sinitic language, Waxiang, a language of northwestern Hunan, China, keynote at 45th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics. Macro-Bai comparative vocabulary list on Wiktionary
19.
Hakka people
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The Chinese characters for Hakka literally mean guest families. Unlike other Han Chinese groups, the Hakkas are not named after a region, e. g. a province. The Hakkas are usually identified with people who speak the Hakka language or share at least some Hakka ancestry, the Hakkas are thought to have originated from the lands bordering the Yellow River. In a series of migrations, the Hakkas moved and settled in their present areas in Southern China, as the most diasporic among the Chinese community groups, the worldwide population of Hakkas is about 80 million. It is commonly held that the Hakkas are a subgroup of the Han Chinese that originated in Northern China, clyde Kiang stated that the Hakkas origins may also be linked with the Hans ancient neighbors, the Dongyi and Xiongnu people. However, this is disputed by scholars and Kiangs theories are considered to be controversial. It is known that the earliest major waves of Hakka migration began due to the attacks of the two afore-mentioned tribes during the Jin dynasty, migrants were referred to as Hakka and no specific people were referred to as Hakka at first. Northern Chinas Yellow River area was the homeland of the Hakka, since the Qin dynasty, the ancestors of the Hakka people have migrated southwards several times because of social unrest, upheaval and invasions. During the 16th century, in response to a boom, the Hakka moved into hilly areas to mine for zinc and lead. After an economic downturn, many of these failed and many people had to turn to pillaging to make ends meet. When the threat was eliminated, Kangxi Emperor issued an edict to re-populate the coastal regions, to aid the move, each family was given monetary incentives to begin their new lives, newcomers were registered as Guest Households. Although different in some customs and culture from the surrounding population. Historical sources shown in census statistics relate only to the population, irrespective of particular districts, provinces. These census counts were made during imperial times and they did not distinguish what Chinese variety the population spoke. Therefore, they do not directly document Hakka migrations, the study by Lo Hsiang-lin, Ko-chia Yen-chiu Tao-Liu / An Introduction to the Study of the Hakkas used genealogical sources of family clans from various southern counties. According to the 2009 studies published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, nevertheless, the study has also shown a strong common genetic relationship between all Han Chinese with only a small difference of 0. 32%. Lingnan Hakka place names indicate a history of the Hakka being culturally Han Chinese. Unlike other Han Chinese groups, the Hakkas are not named after a region, e. g. a province
20.
Gross domestic product
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Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
21.
Renminbi
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The renminbi /ˌrɛnmɪnˈbiː/ is the official currency of the Peoples Republic of China. The yuan is the unit of the renminbi, but is also used to refer to the Chinese currency in general. The distinction between the terms renminbi and yuan is similar to that between sterling and pound, which refer to the British currency and its primary unit. One yuan is subdivided into 10 jiao, and a jiao in turn is subdivided into 10 fen, the ISO code for renminbi is CNY, or also CNH when traded in off-shore markets such as Hong Kong. The currency is often abbreviated RMB, or indicated by the yuan sign ¥, in Chinese texts the currency may also be indicated with the Chinese character for the yuan, 圆. The renminbi is legal tender in mainland China, but not in Hong Kong or Macau, renminbi is sometimes accepted in Hong Kong and Macau, and are easily exchanged in the two territories, with banks in Hong Kong allowing people to maintain accounts in RMB. The currency is issued by the Peoples Bank of China, the authority of China. Until 2005, the value of the renminbi was pegged to the US dollar and it has previously been claimed that the renminbis official exchange rate was undervalued by as much as 37. 5% against its purchasing power parity. Since 2006, the exchange rate has been allowed to float in a narrow margin around a fixed base rate determined with reference to a basket of world currencies. The Chinese government has announced that it gradually increase the flexibility of the exchange rate. As a result of the rapid internationalization of the renminbi, it became the worlds 8th most traded currency in 2013, and 5th in 2015. On 1 October 2016, the RMB became the first emerging market currency to be included in the IMFs special drawing rights basket, a variety of currencies circulated in China during the Republic of China era, most of which were denominated in the unit yuán. Each was distinguished by a name, such as the fabi, the gold yuan. During the era of the economy, the value of the renminbi was set to unrealistic values in exchange with western currency. The unrealistic levels at which exchange rates were pegged led to a black market in currency transactions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, China worked to make the RMB more convertible, through the use of swap centres, the exchange rate was brought to realistic levels and the dual track currency system was abolished. As of 2013, the renminbi is convertible on current accounts, the ultimate goal has been to make the RMB fully convertible. From 1949 until the late 1970s, the state fixed Chinas exchange rate at a highly overvalued level as part of the countrys import -substitution strategy
22.
Human Development Index
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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
23.
Chinese language
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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
24.
Standard Chinese
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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
25.
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
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
27.
Wu Chinese
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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
28.
Cantonese
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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
29.
Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
30.
Southern Min
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Southern Min, or Minnan, is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in certain parts of China including southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang, and in Taiwan. The Min Nan dialects are spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien, including Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien, the Southern Min dialect group also includes Teochew, though Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Hainanese is not mutually intellgible with other Southern Min and is considered a separate branch of Min. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Pu-Xian Min, any other Min branch, Hakka, Cantonese, Shanghainese or Mandarin. Southern Min dialects are spoken in the part of Fujian. The variant spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong as well as Hainan is Hainanese and is not mutually intelligible with other Southern Min or Teochew, Hainanese is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate. Puxian Min was originally based on the Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min, eventually losing intellegility with Minnan. A forms of Southern Min spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, Southern Min is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently, there are many Southern Min speakers also among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese immigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present-day Malaysia and Singapore. In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and speak Teochew language, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Southern Min-speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with the largest group being Hokkien, despite the similarities the two groups are rarely seen as part of the same Minnan Chinese subgroups. The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou, the variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Those Southern Min variants that are known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra. The Philippines variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area, the Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou
31.
Taiwanese Romanization System
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The Taiwanese Romanization System is a transcription system for Taiwanese Hokkien. It is derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī and since 2006 has been promoted by Taiwans Ministry of Education. It is nearly identical to Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet Romanization for Hakka apart from using ts tsh j instead of c ch j for the fricatives /ts tsʰ dz/, Taiwanese Romanization System uses 16 basic Latin letters,7 digraphs and a trigraph. In addition, it uses 6 diacritics to represent tones, nn is only used after a vowel to express nasalization, so it has no capital letter. Palatalization occurs when J, S, Ts, Tsh followed by i, so Ji, Si, Tsi, of the 10 unused basic Latin letters, R is sometimes used to express dialectal vowels, while the others are only used in loanwords. O pronounced ㄜ in general dialect in Kaohsiung and Tainan, ㄛ in Taipei, -nn forms the nasal vowels There is also syllabic m and ng. ing pronounced, ik pronounced. A hyphen links elements of a compound word, a double hyphen indicates that the following syllable has a neutral tone and therefore that the preceding syllable does not undergo tone sandhi. 臺灣閩南語羅馬拼音及其發音學習網, Taiwanese Romanization System learning site by Ministry of Education, Taiwan
32.
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
33.
Vehicle registration plates of China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China issues vehicles licence plates at its Vehicle Management Offices, under the administration of the Ministry of Public Security. Hong Kong and Macau have their own administrations on licence plates, Vehicles from Hong Kong and Macau are required to apply for licence plates, usually from Guangdong, to travel on roads in Mainland China. Vehicles from Mainland China have to apply for Hong Kong or Macau licence plates to enter those territories, taiwan, on the other hand, also has plates administered by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in the Republic of China. The number of registered cars, buses, vans, and trucks on the road in China reached 62 million in 2009, and is expected to exceed 200 million by 2020. The font used on the plates were said to be modified from the East Asian gothic typeface, the current plates are of the 1992 standard, which consist of the one-character provincial abbreviation, a letter of the alphabet, and five numbers or letters of the alphabet. Previously, all plates had used the five-number designation. As the number of motor vehicles grew, however, the number had to exceed what was the maximum previously allowable—90,000 or 100,000 vehicles, therefore, there had become a need to insert Latin letters into the license plate to increase the number of possible combinations. This was first done in the cities with only one prefix. Nanjing, for example, began the change only the first number. Further changes allowed the first two places, or the place alone on the plate to be letters, allowing 792,000 more combinations mathematically. More recently, cities have taken to having the letter alone being a Latin letter. The numbers are produced at random, and are computer-generated at the issuing office, numbers with a sequence of 6s, 8s, or 9s are usually considered to be lucky, therefore special sequences like 88888 or 86888 can be purchased. The older black plates are issued to those who are dual-use vehicles. Licence plates for Chinas Police Service, Armed Police Force, and Military are in a background, with red. Police Service plates have a format of X·LLNNN警. These plates are issued to police, some patrol vehicles, court. Chinese Peoples Armed Police Force uses the pinyin wujing abbreviation WJ, the first two small letters behind the WJ are area prefixes, WJ01-NNNNN. = Hainan The Alphabet Numeral behind the area shows the section of the Armed police
34.
Xiang River
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The Xiang River, formerly romanized as the Siang Kiang and now also known as the Xiangjiang, is a river in southern China. The rivers name and character is used as the Chinese abbreviation for Hunan, originating from Haiyang Mountain in Lingui of Guangxi, the Xiang is the largest river in Hunan and one of the largest tributaries of Yangtze River. It is 856 kilometers long and 670 kilometers of it is in Hunan, people say the Xiang and the Lijiang River share the same origin, because the upper reaches of the two rivers are connected by the ancient Lingqu Canal, which is located in Xingan County, Guangxi. According to a saying, 70% of the water in Lingqu flows into the Xiang. In the past, the canal, along with the Xiang River and they are said to have been the daughters of the legendary ruler Yao and the wives of his successor Shun. Unable to bear the pain of their husbands death, they committed suicide in this river, an etiological myth relates the spots on the spotted bamboo, also known as the Xiang bamboo, Xiang Consort bamboo, and teardrop bamboo, to the tears of the weeping consorts. They were worshipped in some form by the people of Chu during the Warring States, the late Tang Dynasty poet Yu Wuling is supposed to have been fond of the scenery along the Xiang River. The classic Chinese novel The Dream of the Red Chamber includes a character Shi Xiangyun who takes one of the characters of her name from the river, mao Zedongs Shian Kian Weekly Review, founded on 14 June 1919, publicized Marxism in Changsha. Hengyang Zhuzhou Xiangtan Changsha Dongting Lake List of Chinese rivers Xiaoxiang Xiang River, ueki, Hisayuki, Uno, Naoto, Matsubara, Akira. Matsuura, Tomohisa, ed. Kanshi no Jiten 漢詩の事典, Xiang Jiang at GEOnet Names Server
35.
Yangtze
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The Yangtze River, known in China as the Cháng Jiāng or the Yángzǐ Jiāng, is the longest river in Asia and the third-longest in the world. The river is the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country and it drains one-fifth of the land area of the Peoples Republic of China and its river basin is home to one-third of the countrys population. The Yangtze is the sixth-largest river by volume in the world. The Yangtze River plays a role in the history, culture. The prosperous Yangtze River Delta generates as much as 20% of the PRCs GDP, for thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking and war. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world, in recent years, the river has suffered from industrial pollution, agricultural run-off, siltation, and loss of wetland and lakes, which exacerbates seasonal flooding. Some sections of the river are now protected as nature reserves, a stretch of the upstream Yangtze flowing through deep gorges in western Yunnan is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In mid-2014 the Chinese government announced it was building a transport network, comprising railways, roads and airports. Because the source of the Yangtze was not ascertained until modern times, Yangtze was actually the name of Chang Jiang for the lower part from Nanjing to the river mouth at Shanghai. In modern Chinese, Yangtze is still used to refer to the part of Chang Jiang from Nanjing to the river mouth. Yangtze never stands for the whole Chang Jiang, Chang Jiang is the modern Chinese name for the lower 2,884 km of the Yangtze from its confluence with the Min River at Yibin in Sichuan Province to the river mouth at Shanghai. Chang Jiang literally means the Long River, in Old Chinese, this stretch of the Yangtze was simply called Jiang/Kiang 江, a character of phono-semantic compound origin, combining the water radical 氵 with the homophone 工. Krong was probably a word in the Austroasiatic language of local peoples such as the Yue, similar to *krong in Proto-Vietnamese and krung in Mon, all meaning river, it is related to modern Vietnamese sông and Khmer kôngkea. By the Han Dynasty, Jiang had come to any river in Chinese. The epithet 長, means long, was first formally applied to the river during the Six Dynasties period, various sections of Chang Jiang have local names. From Yibin to Yichang, the river through Sichuan and Chongqing Municipality is also known as the Chuan Jiang or Sichuan River, in the Hubei Province, the river is also called the Jing Jiang or the Jing River after Jingzhou. In Anhui Province, the takes on the local name Wan Jiang after the shorthand name for Anhui. And Yangzi Jiang t 揚子江s 扬子江, p Yángzǐjiāng) or the Yangzi River, the name likely comes from an ancient ferry crossing called Yangzi or Yangzijin
36.
Hubei
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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
37.
Jiangxi
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Jiangxi is a province in the Peoples Republic of China, located in the southeast of the country. The name Jiangxi derives from the circuit administrated under the Tang dynasty in 733, the short name for Jiangxi is 赣, for the Gan River which runs across from the south to the north and flows into the Yangtze River. Jiangxi is also alternately called Ganpo Dadi which literally means the Great Land of Gan, Jiangxi is centered on the Gan River valley, which historically provided the main north-south transport route of south China. The corridor along the Gan River is one of the few easily traveled routes through the otherwise mountainous, as a result, Jiangxi has been strategically important throughout much of Chinas history. Jiangxi was outside the sphere of influence of early Chinese civilization during the Shang dynasty and it is likely that peoples collectively known as the Baiyue inhabited the region. During the Spring and Autumn period, the part of modern Jiangxi formed the western frontier of the state of Wu. After Wu was conquered by the state of Yue in 473 BC, Chu subjugated Yue in 333 BC. In 223 BC, when Qin conquered Chu, majority of Jiangxi area was recorded to be put under Jiujiang Commandary situated in Shouchun, however the commandary was ineffective and ended shortly when Qin falls. It was named after the Yuzhang River, the name of Gan River. Gan has become the abbreviation of the province, in 201, eight counties were added to the original seven of Qin, and three more were established in later years. Throughout most of the Han dynasty the commanderys eighteen counties covered most of the province of Jiangxi. The county seats of Nanchang, Gan, Yudu, Luling among others were located at the sites of major cities. Other counties, however, have moved or abolished in later centuries. Under the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, Yuzhang Commandery was assigned to Yangzhou Province, in 291 AD, during the Western Jin dynasty, Jiangxi became its own Zhou called Jiangzhou. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Jiangxi was under the control of the dynasties. During the Sui dynasty, there were seven commanderies and twenty-four counties in Jiangxi, during the Tang dynasty, another commandery and fourteen counties were added. Commanderies were then abolished, becoming zhou, circuits were established during the Tang dynasty as a new top-level administrative division. At first Jiangxi was part of the Jiangnan Circuit, in 733, this circuit was divided into western and eastern halves
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Hunan travel guide from Wikivoyage
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hu-nan". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
Hunan
Republic of China (see Political status of Taiwan).
