1.
County-level city
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A county-level municipality, county-level city, or county city is a county-level administrative division of mainland China. County-level cities are governed by prefecture-level divisions, but a few are governed directly by province-level divisions. Most county-level cities were created in the 1980s and 1990s by replacing counties, a county-level city is a city and county that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is simultaneously a city, which is an entity. County-level cities are not cities in the strictest sense of the word, since they usually contain rural areas many times the size of their urban and this is because the counties that county-level cities have replaced are themselves large administrative units containing towns, villages, and farmland. To distinguish a city from its actual urban area, the term 市区 shìqū. In France, an equivalent of a city is an agglomeration community. For example, in New South Wales such a unit may often be called a city, city of Blue Mountains is made of a number of towns. Another example would be municipal government in the Canadian province of Ontario and this agglomeration includes all of the townships in the county of Kent, with cities and towns like Wallaceberg, Thamesville, Dresden, Wheatley. This amalgamation as it is referred to, was controversial when it was forced upon the constituents through provincial legislation. Today, instead of each city having its own mayor and city councillors, as of January 2017, there are 360 County-level city in total, A sub-prefecture-level city is a county-level city with powers approaching those of prefecture-level cities. Examples include, Xiantao, Qianjiang, Tianmen and Jiyuan, administrative divisions of China Counties of the Peoples Republic of China Prefecture-level city List of cities in China
2.
Country
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A country is a region that is identified as a distinct national entity in political geography. Sometimes the word countries is used to both to sovereign states and to other political entities, while other times it refers only to states. The word country comes from Old French contrée, itself derived from Vulgar Latin contrata and it most likely entered the English language after the Franco-Norman invasion during the 11th century. Areas much smaller than a state may be called by names such as the West Country in England, the Black Country, Constable Country. In many European countries the words are used for sub-divisions of the territory, as in the German Bundesländer. The modern Italian contrada is a word with its meaning varying locally, the term country is frequently used to refer to sovereign states. There is no agreement on the number of countries in the world. There are 206 sovereign states, of which 193 states are members of the United Nations, all are defined as states by declarative theory of statehood and constitutive theory of statehood. The latest proclaimed state is South Sudan in 2011, the Kingdom of Denmark, a sovereign state, comprises Metropolitan Denmark and two nominally separate countries—the Faroe Islands, and Greenland—which are almost fully internally self-governing. The Kingdom of the Netherlands, a state, comprises four separate countries, Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao. The degree of autonomy of non-sovereign countries varies widely, some are possessions of sovereign states, as several states have overseas territories, with citizenry at times identical and at times distinct from their own
3.
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
4.
Yunnan
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Yunnan is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country. It spans approximately 394,000 square kilometres and has a population of 45.7 million in 2009, the capital of the province is Kunming, formerly also known as Yunnan. The province borders Vietnam, Laos, and Burma, Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with high elevations in the northwest and low elevations in the southeast. Most of the lives in the eastern part of the province. In the west, the altitude can vary from the peaks to river valleys as much as 3,000 metres. Yunnan is rich in resources and has the largest diversity of plant life in China. Of the approximately 30,000 species of plants in China. Yunnans reserves of aluminium, lead, zinc and tin are the largest in China, the Han Empire first recorded diplomatic relations with the province at the end of the 2nd century BC. It became the seat of a Sino-Tibetan-speaking kingdom of Nanzhao in the 8th centuryAD, Nanzhao was multi-ethnic, but the elite most-likely spoke a northern dialect of Yi. The Mongols conquered the region in the 13th century, with local control exercised by warlords until the 1930s, as with other parts of Chinas southwest, Japanese occupation in the north during World War II forced another migration of majority Han people into the region. These two wave of migration contributed to Yunnan being one of the most ethnically diverse provinces of China, major ethnic groups include Yi, Bai, Hani, Zhuang, Dai and Miao. The Yuanmou Man, a Homo erectus fossil unearthed by railway engineers in the 1960s, has determined to be the oldest-known hominid fossil in China. By the Neolithic period, there were settlements in the area of Lake Dian. These people used tools and constructed simple wooden structures. Around the 3rd century BC, the area of Yunnan around present day Kunming was known as Dian. The Chu general Zhuang Qiao entered the region from the upper Yangtze River and he and his followers brought into Yunnan an influx of Chinese influence, the start of a long history of migration and cultural expansion. In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang unified China and extended his authority south, commanderies and counties were established in Yunnan. An existing road in Sichuan – the Five Foot Way – was extended south to present day Qujing
5.
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
6.
Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture
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Xishuangbanna, Sibsongbanna, or Sipsong Panna, shortened to Banna is a Tai Lü autonomous prefecture in the extreme south of Yunnan, China. The prefectural seat is Jinghong, the largest settlement in the area and one that straddles the Mekong, Sipsongpanna is a Tai Lü compound consisting of sipsong twelve, pan township and na rice paddy. The Yunnan provincial government of the newly established Republic of China sent troops in 1913 to oust the rebels, the Second Sino-Japanese War saw the heavy bombardment of Xishuangbanna by Japanese troops and a simultaneous influx of Pan-Taiist propaganda from Japans ally, Thailand. According to Hsieh, this reduced the appeal of a broad pan-Tai identity among the Dai Lue, during the final phase of the Chinese Civil War, many remnants of the Kuomintang fled from Communists forces into Burmas Shan State from Xishuangbanna. The Communists took control of the prefecture from Kuomintang loyalists in 1952, on January 23,1953, the PRC established the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Region and ended the native-chieftain system. That year, the Peoples Congress of Xishuangbanna created the New Tai Lue alphabet, based on the Tai Tham alphabet, Xishuangbanna was made an autonomous prefecture in 1955, but lost some territory on the creation of Jingdong Yi Autonomous County and Jiangcheng Hani and Yi Autonomous County. Land reform started in earnest in January 1956, destroying the power of the village headmen, state-owned rubber plantations accounted for most of the regions wealth during the early PRC period. Xishuangbanna also received an influx of educated youth during the Down to the Countryside Movement of the Cultural Revolution, during this period Buddhist temples in Xishuangbanna were used as barns, only being restored to their original purpose in 1981. Shao Cunxin, former head of the Chieftains outer council and chief of Meng Peng, was the chief of the prefecture from 1955 to 1992. Xishuangbanna governs one county-level city and two counties, references, Xishuangbanna Gov, Citypopulation. de Yunnan Urban Populations. The prefecture has an area of 19,700 km2, Xishuangbanna is the home of the Dai people. The region sits at a lower altitude than most of Yunnan and it is fast becoming a sought after tourist destination. Xishuangbanna harbors much of the biodiversity of Yunnan, which much of the biodiversity of China. Its tropical climate and its remoteness until recent times accounts for this, passiflora xishuangbannaensis is a recently discovered passiflora species that is endemic to Xishuangbanna. With censuses in the year 2000 Xishuangbanna had 993,397 inhabitants with a density of 50.43 inhabitants per km². According to the 2000 national census, Dai people make up the plurality at 29. 89%, the Han and Dai lived mostly around the mountains and played a socially dominant role, while the non-Dai ethnic minorities lived in the basins and were politically disenfranchised. The Dai used to be called the Baiyi, and until a 1936 Guomindang reform, the PRC government decided that regardless of radical, the term Baiyi is pejorative, and adopted Dai instead. Ethnic groups in Xishuangbanna,2000 census In Jinghong City and Menghai County, the Jizuo 吉坐 are the largest Hani ethnic subgroup in Jinghong
7.
Time in China
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The time in China follows a single standard time offset of UTC+08,00, despite China spanning five geographical time zones. The official national standard time is called Beijing Time domestically and China Standard Time internationally, daylight saving time has not been observed since 1991. The special administrative regions maintain their own authorities, with standards called Hong Kong Time. These have been equivalent to Beijing time since 1992, in addition, a second time standard is used in Xinjiang, two hours less than the Beijing Time, which is called Ürümqi Time or Xinjiang Time. In 1912, the Republic of China established five standard time zones, namely Kunlun, Sinkiang-Tibet, Kansu-Szechwan, Chungyuan, and Changpai. The unified time zone policy was adopted by the Communist Party of China or the Central People’s Government some time between 27 September 1949 and 6 October 1949, the date is unknown. However, recent research suggests that the policy was most likely adopted on 27 September 1949, daylight saving time was observed from 1986 to 1991. In 1997 and 1999, Hong Kong and Macau were transferred to China from the United Kingdom and Portugal, although the sovereignty of the SARs belongs to China, they retain their own policies regarding time zones for historical reasons. Due to their locations, both are within the UTC+08,00 time zone, which is the same as the national standard — Beijing time. Xinjiang Time, also known as Ürümqi Time, is set due to its location in the westernmost part of the country. The time offset is UTC+06,00, which is two hours behind Beijing, and is shared with neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Currently, timezone usage within Xinjiang is roughly split along the divide, with most ethnic Han following Beijing time. Some local authorities are now using both time standard side by side, the coexistence of two timezones within the same region causes some confusion among the local population, especially when inter-racial communication occur. Some ethnic Han in Xinjiang might not be aware of the existence of the UTC+6 Xinjiang Time because of language barrier, regardless, Beijing Time users in Xinjiang usually schedule their daily activities two hours later than those who live in eastern China. As such, stores and offices in Xinjiang are commonly opening from 10am to 7pm Beijing Time and this is known as the work/rest time in Xinjiang. Hong Kong maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1997, the Hong Kong Time is UTC+08,00 all year round, and daylight saving time has not been used since 1979. Greenwich Mean Time was adopted as the basis in 1904, before that, local time was determined by astronomical observations at Hong Kong Observatory using a 6-inch Lee Equatorial and a 3-inch Transit Circle. Macau maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1999, the Macau Standard Time is the time in Macau
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Jinghong travel guide from Wikivoyage