1.
Prefecture-level city
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Prefectural level cities form the second level of the administrative structure. Administrative chiefs of prefectural level cities generally have the rank as a division chief of a national ministry. Since the 1980s, most former prefectures have been renamed into prefectural level cities, a prefectural level city is a city and prefecture that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. The larger prefectural level cities span over 100 kilometres, prefectural level cities nearly always contain multiple counties, county level cities, and other such sub-divisions. To distinguish a prefectural level city from its urban area. The first prefectural level cities were created on 5 November 1983, over the following two decades, prefectural level cities have come to replace the vast majority of Chinese prefectures, the process is still ongoing. Most provinces are composed entirely or nearly entirely of prefectural level cities, shijiazhuang and Zhengzhou are the largest prefectural level cities with populations approaching or exceeding some sub-provincial cities. A sub-prefecture-level city is a city with powers approaching those of prefectural level cities. There are total of three classification of prefecture-level city, Regular prefectural level city which consist of counties, county level cities, consolidated district-governed prefectural level city which only consist of districts as it subdivisions. Thus, Bloomington, Indiana is indicated on the map by a point, which is distinct from, and enclosed by, in China, however, large cities such as City of Xianning may, in reality, contain both urban and rural elements. Moreover, they may enclose counties or other cities, on a less detailed map, City of Xianning would be indicated by a point, more or less corresponding to the coordinates of its city government. Other populous areas may also be exhibited as points, such as County of Tongshan, with no indication that County of Tongshan is, in fact, enclosed by City of Xianning. On a more detailed map, City of Xianning would be drawn as an area, similar to a county of the United States and this convention may lead to difficulty in the identification of places mentioned in older sources. For example, Guo Moruo writes that he was born in Town of Shawan, within Prefecture of Leshan, and attended primary school in Town of Jiading. A modern map is unlikely to show either town, Shawan, because it is too small, and Jiading, because it is the seat of City of Leshan, and is therefore indicated on the map by a point labelled Leshan. A more detailed map would show Shawan as a district within City of Leshan, statistics of China such as population and industrial activity are generally reported along prefectural city lines. Thus, the relatively unknown City of Huangshi has 2.5 million residents, more than most European capitals, but upon closer inspection, furthermore, Huangshi contains several other cities, such as City of Daye. If a person wished to calculate the population of the area of Huangshi, and had a map of Huangshi, and a table of its population by district
2.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
3.
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.
Guangdong
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Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the Peoples Republic of China. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are among the most populous, the population increase since the census has been modest, the province at 2014 end had 107,240,000 people. Since 1989, Guangdong has topped the total GDP rankings among all divisions, with Jiangsu and Shandong second. According to state statistics, Guangdongs GDP in 2014 reached RMB6,779 billion, or US$1.104 trillion, since 2011, Guangdong has the highest GDP among all provinces of Mainland China. The province contributes approximately 12% of the PRCs national economic output, Guangdong also hosts the largest import and export fair in China called the Canton Fair in Guangdongs capital city Guangzhou. Guǎng means expanse or vast, and has associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD226. Guangdong and neighbouring Guangxi literally mean expanse east and expanse west, together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called Loeng gwong. During the Song dynasty, the Two Guangs were formally separated as Guǎngnán Dōnglù and Guǎngnán Xīlù, one should note that Canton, though etymologically derived from Cantão, refers only to the provincial capital instead of the whole province, as documented by authoritative English dictionaries. The local people of the city of Guangzhou and their language are commonly referred to as Cantonese in English. Because of the prestige of Canton and its accent, Cantonese sensu lato can also be used for the phylogenetically related residents, Chinese administration and reliable historical records in the region began with the Qin dynasty. After establishing the first unified Chinese empire, the Qin expanded southwards and set up Nanhai Commandery at Panyu, the region was independent as Nanyue between the fall of Qin and the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. Under the Wu Kingdom of the Three Kingdoms period, Guangdong was made its own province, for example, internal strife in northern China following the rebellion of An Lushan resulted in a 75% increase in the population of Guangzhou prefecture between 740s–750s and 800s–810s. As more migrants arrived, the population was gradually assimilated to Han Chinese culture or displaced. Multiple women originating from the Persian Gulf lived in Guangzhous foreign quarter, together with Guangxi, Guangdong was made part of Lingnan Circuit, or Mountain-South Circuit, in 627 during the Tang dynasty. The Guangdong part of Lingnan Circuit was renamed Guangnan East Circuit guǎng nán dōng lù in 971 during the Song dynasty, Guangnan East is the source of Guangdong. As Mongols from the north engaged in their conquest of China in the 13th century, the Battle of Yamen 1279 in Guangdong marked the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. During the Mongol Yuan dynasty, large parts of current Guangdong belonged to Jiangxi and its present name, Guangdong Province was given in early Ming dynasty. Since the 16th century, Guangdong has had extensive links with the rest of the world
5.
Administrative divisions of China
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Due to Chinas large population and area, the administrative divisions of China have consisted of several levels since ancient times. The constitution of China provides for three de jure levels of government, currently, however, there are five practical levels of local government, the provincial, prefecture, county, township, and village. Since the 17th century, provincial boundaries in China have remained largely static, the provinces serve an important cultural role in China, as people tend to identify with their native province. The Constitution of China provides for three levels, the provincial, county, and township, however, two more levels have been inserted in actual implementation, the prefecture, under provinces, and the village, under townships. There is a level, the district public office, below counties. As of 2017, China administers 33 provincial-level regions,334 prefecture-level divisions,2,862 county-level divisions,41,034 township-level administrations, each of the levels correspond to a level in the Civil service of the Peoples Republic of China. This table summarizes the divisions of the area administered by the Peoples Republic of China as of 2011, unlike the United States, the power of the central government was not exercised through a parallel set of institutions until the early 1990s. The actual practical power of the provinces has created what some economists call federalism with Chinese characteristics, most of the provinces, with the exception of the provinces in the northeast, have boundaries which were established long ago in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Sometimes provincial borders form cultural or geographical boundaries and this was an attempt by the imperial government to discourage separatism and warlordism through a divide and rule policy. Nevertheless, provinces have come to serve an important cultural role in China, people tend to be identified in terms of their native provinces, and each province has a stereotype that corresponds to their inhabitants. The most recent administrative changes have included the elevation of Hainan and Chongqing to provincial status. Provincial level governments vary in details of organization, Click any region for more info, for a larger version of this map, see here. Prefectural level divisions or second-level divisions are the level of the administrative structure. Most provinces are divided into only prefecture-level cities and contain no other second level administrative units, of the 22 provinces and 5 autonomous regions, only 3 provinces and 2 autonomous regions have more than three second level or prefectural level divisions that are not prefecture-level cities. Each of them have a committee to administer the dwellers of that neighborhood or community. Rural areas are organized into committees or villager groups. A village in this case can either be a village, one that spontaneously and naturally exists, or an administrative village. Five cities formally on prefectural level have a status in regard to planning
6.
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
7.
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
8.
Nationalities of China
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The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group, where some 91. 51% of the population was classified as Han Chinese. The major minority groups in China are Zhuang, Uyghur, Hui, Manchu, Miao, Yi, Tujia, Tibetan, Mongol, Dong, Buyei, Yao, Bai, Korean, Hani, Li, Kazakh. In order of population, this is the list of the 56 ethnic groups in China that are recognized by the government of the Peoples Republic of China. The number of recognized ethnic groups in China used to be 39 in 1954. The last change was the addition of the Jino people in 1979, the Peoples Republic of China government officially refers to all Taiwanese aborigines as Gaoshan, whereas the Republic of China recognizes 16 groups of Taiwanese aborigines. The term Gaoshan has a different connotation in Taiwan than it does in mainland China, while several thousands of these aborigines have migrated to Fujian province in mainland China, most remain in Taiwan. Due to the political status and legal status of Taiwan. This is a list of groups in China that are not officially recognized by the government of the Peoples Republic of China. Presumably, other members of groups may have been counted within larger recognized groups. The various Han Chinese subgroups, such as Hakka people and Cantonese people are all considered just Han by the PRC government, Hong Kong and Macau are special administrative regions of the Peoples Republic of China. As a result, minority groups such as Europeans, and South or South East Asians live in Hong Kong. com Map share of ethnic by county of China Map share of ethnic by county of China
9.
Coast
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A coastline or a seashore is the area where land meets the sea or ocean, or a line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the Coastline paradox, the term coastal zone is a region where interaction of the sea and land processes occurs. Both the terms coast and coastal are often used to describe a location or region, for example, New Zealands West Coast. Edinburgh for example is a city on the coast of Scotland, a pelagic coast refers to a coast which fronts the open ocean, as opposed to a more sheltered coast in a gulf or bay. A shore, on the hand, can refer to parts of the land which adjoin any large body of water, including oceans. Similarly, the related term refers to the land alongside or sloping down to a river or to a body of water smaller than a lake. Bank is also used in parts of the world to refer to an artificial ridge of earth intended to retain the water of a river or pond. According to the UN atlas, 44% of people live within 150 kilometres of the sea, tides often determine the range over which sediment is deposited or eroded. Areas with high tidal ranges allow waves to reach farther up the shore, the tidal range is influenced by the size and shape of the coastline. Tides do not typically cause erosion by themselves, however, tidal bores can erode as the waves surge up river estuaries from the ocean. Waves erode coastline as they break on shore releasing their energy, the larger the wave the more energy it releases and the more sediment it moves. Coastlines with longer shores have more room for the waves to disperse their energy, while coasts with cliffs and short shore faces give little room for the wave energy to be dispersed. In these areas the wave energy breaking against the cliffs is higher, sediment deposited by waves comes from eroded cliff faces and is moved along the coastline by the waves. This forms an abrasion or cliffed coast, sediment deposited by rivers is the dominant influence on the amount of sediment located on a coastline. Today riverine deposition at the coast is often blocked by dams and other human regulatory devices, like the ocean which shapes them, coasts are a dynamic environment with constant change. The coast and its adjacent areas on and off shore are an important part of a local ecosystem, Salt marshes and beaches also support a diversity of plants, animals and insects crucial to the food chain. The high level of biodiversity creates a level of biological activity. More and more of the people live in coastal regions
10.
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
11.
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
12.
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
13.
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
14.
Chinese postal romanization
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Postal romanization was a system of transliterating Chinese place names developed by the Imperial Post Office in the early 1900s. The system was in use until the 1980s. For major cities and other places that already had widely accepted European names, with regard to other place names, the post office revised policy several times. Spellings given could reflect the pronunciation, Nanjing pronunciation, or Beijing pronunciation. At a conference held in 1906 in Shanghai, the post office selected a system of romanization developed by Herbert Giles called Nanking syllabary, although Beijing dialect had served as a national standard since the mid-19th century, the system adopted was based on Nanjing pronunciation. The system corresponded to traditional romanizations that were adopted in the 18th century when Nanjing dialect was considered standard. French-appointed administrators ran the post office at time, and they sought a less anglicized alternative to Wade-Giles. An imperial edict issued in 1896 renamed the Maritime Customs Post, reorganized this agency as a postal service. In 1899, Robert Hart, as general of posts. Although Hart asked for transliterations according to the pronunciation, most postmasters were reluctant to play lexicographer. The spellings that they submitted generally followed a system created by Thomas Francis Wade, the system had been developed in 1859 and was based on the Beijing pronunciation. It became the method of romanizing Chinese after Herbert Giles published a dictionary, using the system. The post office published a draft romanization map in 1903, disappointed with the Wade-based map, Hart made another attempt to promote localism in 1905. He directed the postmasters to submit romanizations not as directed by Wade, local missionaries could be consulted, Hart suggested. However, Wades system reflected pronunciation in most areas served by the post office, a more serious disadvantage was that the French viewed Wades system as anglophone. The top position in the post office was held by Postal Secretary Théophile Piry, until 1911, the post office remained part of the Maritime Customs Service. As customs inspector general, Hart was Pirys boss, but French backing effectively gave Piry a postal fiefdom, Piry responded to Harts moves by organising an Imperial Postal Joint-Session Conference in Shanghai in the spring of 1906. As it was a joint postal and telegraphic conference, it allowed Piry to go over Harts head, the conference resolved that existing spellings would be retained for all names already transliterated
15.
Shoal
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Often it refers to those submerged ridges, banks, or bars that rise near enough to the surface of a body of water as to constitute a danger to navigation. Shoals are also known as sandbanks, sandbars, or gravelbars, two or more shoals that are either separated by shared troughs or interconnected by past and or present sedimentary and hydrographic processes are referred to as a shoal complex. The term shoal is also used in a number of ways that can be similar or quite different from how it is used in the geologic, geomorphic. Shoals are characteristically long and narrow ridges and they can develop where a stream, river, or ocean current promotes deposition of sediment and granular material, resulting in localized shallowing of the water. Marine shoals also develop either by the in place drowning of barrier islands as the result of sea level rise or by the erosion. Shoals can appear as a coastal landform in the sea, where they are classified as a type of bank, or as fluvial landforms in rivers, streams. A shoal–sandbar may seasonally separate a smaller body of water from the sea, such as, Marine lagoons Brackish water estuaries Freshwater seasonal stream and river mouths and deltas. They are typically composed of sand, although they could be of any matter that the moving water has access to and is capable of shifting around. Wave shoaling is the process when surface waves move towards shallow water, such as a beach, they slow down, their wave height increases and this behavior is called shoaling, and the waves are said to shoal. The waves may or may not build to the point where they break, depending on how large they were to begin with, in particular, waves shoal as they pass over submerged sandbanks or reefs. This can be treacherous for boats and ships, shoaling can also diffract waves, so the waves change direction. For example, if waves pass over a bank which is shallower at one end than the other. Thus the wave fronts will refract, changing direction like light passing through a prism, refraction also occurs as waves move towards a beach if the waves come in at an angle to the beach, or if the beach slopes more gradually at one end than the other. Sandbars, also known as a trough bars, form where the waves are breaking, sometimes this occurs seaward of a trough. Sand carried by the moving bottom current is deposited where the current reaches the wave break. Other longshore bars may lie further offshore, representing the point of even larger waves. A harbor or river bar is a sedimentary deposit formed at an entrance or river mouth by. Where beaches are suitably mobile, or the river’s suspended and/or bed loads are large enough, deposition can build up a sandbar that completely blocks a river mouth and damming the river
16.
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
17.
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
18.
Teochew dialect
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Teochew is a variety of Southern Min spoken mainly by the Teochew people in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong and by their respective diaspora around the world. It is sometimes referred to as Chiuchow, its Cantonese name, Teochew preserves many Old Chinese pronunciations and vocabulary that have been lost in some of the other modern varieties of Chinese. As such, many linguists consider Teochew one of the most conservative Chinese dialects, Teochew is a member of the Southern Min subgroup, which in turn constitutes a part of Min Chinese, one of the seven major language groups of Chinese. Even within the Teochew dialects, there is variation in phonology between different regions of Chaoshan and between different Teochew communities overseas. Parts of the Hakka-speaking regions of Jiexi County, Dabu County and Fengshun, as Chaoshan was one of the major sources of Chinese emigration to Southeast Asia during the 18th to 20th centuries, a considerable Overseas Chinese community in that region is Teochew-speaking. In particular, the Teochew people settled in significant numbers in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, teochew-speakers form a minority among Chinese communities in Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Teochew was never popular in Chinese communities in Japan and South Korea, since most of the Teochew people who migrated to these countries are secondary immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Most of them are people from Hong Kong and Taiwan who speak Cantonese, Hokkien and Mandarin, as well as Korean and Japanese. This refers to Chaozhou, the variety of Teochew spoken in China, Chaozhou children are introduced to Standard Chinese as early as in kindergarten, however, Chaozhou remains the primary medium of instruction. In the early years of education, Mandarin becomes the sole language of instruction. Mandarin is widely understood, however minimally, by most younger Chaozhou speakers, native Chaozhou speakers find the neutral tone in Mandarin hardest to master. Chaozhou has lost the alveolar nasal ending and so the people often replace the sound in Mandarin with the velar nasal, none of the southern Min dialects have a front rounded vowel, therefore a typical Chaozhou accent supplants the unrounded counterpart for. Chaozhou, like its ancient ancestor, lacks labio-dentals, people therefore substitute or for when they speak Mandarin, Chaozhou does not have any of the retroflex consonants in the northern dialects, so they pronounce, and instead of, and. Since Chaoan, Raoping and Jieyang border the Hakka-speaking region in the north, some people in these regions speak Hakka, Chaozhou people have historically had a great deal of contact with the Hakka people, but Hakka has had little, if any, influence on Chaozhou. Similarly, in Dabu and Fengshun, where the Chaozhou- and Hakka-speaking regions meet, in the mountainous area of Fenghuang, the She language, an endangered Hmong–Mien language, is spoken by the She people, who are an officially-recognised non-Han ethnic minority. They predominantly speak Hakka and Teochew, only about 1,000 She still speak their eponymous language, the voiced stops and and also are voicelessly prenasalised, respectively. They are in distribution with the tenuis stops, occurring before nasal vowels and nasal codas, whereas the tenuis stops occur before oral vowels. The voiced affricate dz, initial in such words as 字, 二, 然, 若 loses its affricate property with some younger speakers abroad, and is relaxed to
19.
Jieyang
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Jieyang is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province, Peoples Republic of China. It borders Shantou to the east, Chaozhou to the northeast, Meizhou to the north, Shanwei to the west, the prefecture-level city of Jieyang administers 5 county-level divisions, including 1 district,1 county-level city and 3 counties. These are further divided into 100 township-level divisions, including 69 towns,10 townships and 21 subdistricts, rice cultivation and the textile industry are important to its economy. The new Jieyang Chaoshan Airport is the third largest airport complex in Guangdong Province, after Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and it replaced the Shantou Waisha Airport on 15 November 2011. Jieyang is located on the Guangzhou–Meizhou–Shantou Railway, the Teochew dialect is predominantly spoken in this region. The Hakka dialect, however, has its presence among Hakka people in Jiexi County. 1930s saw numerous Jieyang inhabitants emigrating overseas, pontianak and Ketapang, Indonesia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand has large Chinese communities of Jieyang origin. In 1991, the Chinese central government have approved that Jieyang become a prefecture-level city
20.
Meizhou
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Meizhou is a prefecture-level city in eastern Guangdong province, Peoples Republic of China. It has an area of 15,864.51 km2, and it comprises Meijiang District, Xingning City and six counties. Its built-up or metro area made up of 2 urban districts was home to 935,516 inhabitants at the 2010 census, the name Meizhou comes from the Mei River and the Chinese name for the plum blossom. Meizhou was established as the prefecture of Jingzhou during the Southern Han and it became Meizhou at the time of Northern Song dynasty and Jiaying Prefecture during the Qing dynasty. After several subsequent shifts of jurisdiction, it became Meizhou City in 1988, Meizhou is now a noted historical and cultural city. Meizhou is located in the northeast of Guangdong Province, bordering Fujian Province in the northeast, the complex geological structure was formed mainly from granite, spouting rocks, metamorphic rock, shale, sandstone, red rock and limestone. Its administrative area ranges in latitude from 23°23 to 24°56 N and in longitude from 115°18 to 116°56 E, Meizhou has a humid subtropical climate, with short, mild, overcast winters and long, very hot, humid summers. The monthly daily average temperature in January is 12.4 °C, from April to June, rainfall is the heaviest and most frequent. Though striking typhoons do not affect the area as much as the coast, the municipal government, Intermediate Court, CPC office and Public Security Bureau are located in the Jiangnan Subdistrict of the Meijiang District, on the right bank of Mei River. Meizhou is rich in mineral and tourism resources and it has 48 kinds of minerals including coal, iron, limestone, rare clay and porcelain clay amongst others. Of these reserves manganese is ranked first in Guangdong Province, Meizhou has plenty of water resources, hot springs and certified mineral waters. There are tourism resources such as historic sites constructed during the Tang Dynasty, former residences of notable figures, natural scenery of all kinds. Meizhou is a hub for the three provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, and Jiangxi and the bridge connecting the coastal and the inland areas. State Highways 205 and 206 run across the city, guangzhou-Meizhou-Shantou Railway and Meizhou-Kanshi Railway pass through the city while expressways, state, provincial county and village highways extend to all parts. The city is served by the regional Meixian Airport, with regular air routes to Guangzhou, by water, the Mei River and Han River reach Chaozhou and Shantou. Meizhou is considered the center for standard Hakka dialect, along with the neighboring Mei County, Hakkas are a unique ethnic group of Han Chinese originally from around the Yellow River area, who later migrated south to avoid the chaos of war centuries ago. Due to hostility towards the new immigrants, many were forced into the regions of Guangdong Province. This migratory tradition has continued with the redistribution of Hakka people to the most remote parts of the world, many people in Meizhou emigrated during the last century to earn money for their families, with some returning to build in their hometowns
21.
Heyuan
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Héyuán is a prefecture-level city of Guangdong province in the Peoples Republic of China. At the 2010 census, its population was 2,950,195 whom 903,871 lived in the area made of Yuancheng urban District. Zijin County itself is quickly being conurbated in the agglomeration, the majority of the people are Hakka. The city includes many rainforests and the largest lake in Guangdong, Xinfengjiang Reservoir, the literal meaning of the citys name is origin of the river. It has recently been officially titled as the Hometown of the Dinosaur in China, Heyuan is located in the north-east region of Guangdong, upper reach of Dong River at its confluence with the Xingeng River. Its latitude spans 23° 10–24°50 N, and longitude 114° 13–115°35 E and it borders Huizhou to the south, Ganzhou to the north, Meizhou to the east and Shaoguan to the west. Heyuan is a hub that connects the coastal areas of Guangdong. Heyuan is rich in resources and fertile land. There are 1,000 km2 of cultivated land,13,600 km2 of hilly land, many mineral deposits such as iron ore, tungsten, tin, fluorite are found in Heyuan. Heyuan has a humid subtropical climate, with short, mild to warm winters. Winter begins sunny and dry but becomes progressively wetter and cloudier, spring is generally overcast and often rainy, while summer continues to be rainy though is much sunnier, there are 9.1 days annually with 50 mm of rainfall. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from 13.6 °C in January to 29.2 °C in July, the annual rainfall is just over 2,000 mm, and is delivered in bulk from April to June. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 23% in March to 55% in October and November, the citys museum boasts the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of dinosaur eggs, with 10,008 individual samples as of 2004. Dinosaur skeletons and fossilized footprints have also found nearby. In the great majority of Heyuan areas, Hakka Chinese is in general use, also, in some areas on the banks of the Dongjiang, Dongjiang Bendihua is in general use. Its classification is disputed between the Yuezhong division of Hakka and the Huihe division of Yue, Heyuan City administers Yuancheng District, Dongyuan County, Heping County, Longchuan County, Zijin County and Lianping County. The total area is 15,800 square kilometres, Heyuan city and its districts have a population of 3.2194 million. The municipality seat is in Yuancheng District, Heyuan city is a major economic and transportation hub for the Beijing-Kowloon Railway and the Guangzhou-Meizhou-Shantou Railway which crosses the city
22.
Huizhou
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Huìzhōu is a city in southeast Guangdong Province, China. The city has about 4.6 million inhabitants and is administered as a prefecture-level city, daya Bay Economic and Technological Development Zone Huizhou Dayawan Economic and Technological Development Zone was approved by the State Council in 1993. It had an area of 9.98 km2, and in 2006. Industries encouraged in the zone include Automobile Production/Assembly, Chemical Production and Processing, Electronics Assembly & Manufacturing, Huizhou Export Processing Zone Huizhou Export Processing Zone was approved by Guangdong Provincial Government as a subzone of DBETDZ in June,2005. The planned area was 3 km2, the zone was considered suitable for companies focusing on electronics, auto parts, textiles and chemicals. Beijing-Kowloon Railway and Huizhou-Aotou Railway also run through the zone, linking it with Beijing, Hong Kong, Shenzhen Baoan International Airport is within one-and-a-half hours drive from the zone. Huizhou Zhongkai HIDZ has established electronics, information technology and optical-, mechanical- and it also encourages investment in new materials, telecommunications, and other high-tech industries. The zone is one of the National Electronic Information Industry Bases and National Video, the zone has attracted many large multinational companies. Major investors include Sony, SPG, Futaba, Coca-Cola, LG, the prefecture-level city of Huizhou administers 5 county-level divisions, including 2 districts and 3 counties. Huizhou is served by the Jingjiu Railway with two stations, Huizhou West and Huizhou, the town is about a two-hour drive by bus from Shenzhen Baoan International Airport. A mass rapid transit linking it to Shenzhen was under construction as of 2011, the main language spoken by the local people in Huizhou is Huizhou dialect as well as Hakka. As more newcomers from the other come to work in Huizhou. There are nearly 100 islands and reefs in the bay, the climate is described as a typical subtropical oceanic climate, with temperatures averaging 21.8 degrees over the year. Beach Spa Huizhous seashore hot springs are filled with geothermal minerals, sea-level city The Sea city was built in the 18th year of the Ming dynasty, under the Hongwu Emperor, giving it a history of over 600 years. It is found south of the Five Ridges, Elephant Head Mountain Elephant head mountain scenic area is located in the south of Boluo County,18 kilometres from the Huizhou city area, and covers an area of 33 km2. It was formed of rock in the Cretaceous period and has a main peak of 1023 meters above sea level. The mountain bedrock forms a stone egg landscape. Huizhou is twinned with, Hallstatt, Austria Milpitas, California, United States Government website of Huizhou
23.
South China Sea
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The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Karimata and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 square kilometres. The areas importance largely results from one-third of the worlds shipping sailing through its waters, the sea and its mostly uninhabited islands are subject to competing claims of sovereignty by several countries. These claims are reflected in the variety of names used for the islands. South China Sea is the dominant term used in English for the sea, and this name is a result of early European interest in the sea as a route from Europe and South Asia to the trading opportunities of China. In the sixteenth century Portuguese sailors called it the China Sea, the International Hydrographic Organization refers to the sea as South China Sea. The Classic of Poetry, Zuo Zhuan, and Guoyu classics of the Spring and Autumn period also referred to the sea, Nan Hai, the South Sea, was one of the Four Seas of Chinese literature. There are three other seas, one for each of the four cardinal directions, during the Eastern Han dynasty, Chinas rulers called the Sea Zhang Hai. Fei Hai became popular during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, usage of the current Chinese name, Nan Hai, became gradually widespread during the Qing Dynasty. In Southeast Asia it was called the Champa Sea or Sea of Cham. The majority of the sea came under Japanese naval control during World War II following the acquisition of many surrounding South East Asian territories in 1941. Japan calls the sea Minami Shina Kai South China Sea and this was written 南支那海 until 2004, when the Japanese Foreign Ministry and other departments switched the spelling 南シナ海, which has become the standard usage in Japan. In China, it is called the South Sea, 南海 Nánhǎi, in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, it was long called the South China Sea, with the part within Philippine territorial waters often called the Luzon Sea, Dagat Luzon, by the Philippines. However, following an escalation of the Spratly Islands dispute in 2011, a PAGASA spokesperson said that the sea to the east of the Philippines will continue to be called the Philippine Sea. In September 2012, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III signed Administrative Order No, states and territories with borders on the sea include, the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam. Major rivers that flow into the South China Sea include the Pearl, Min, Jiulong, Red, Mekong, Rajang, Pahang, Pampanga, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the South China Sea as follows, On the South. From Fuki Kaku the North point of Formosa to Kiushan Tao on to the South point of Haitan Tao, the Mainland, the Southern limit of the Gulf of Thailand and the East coast of the Malay Peninsula. The sea lies above a drowned continental shelf, during recent ice ages global sea level was hundreds of metres lower, the South China Sea opened around 45 million years ago when the Dangerous Ground rifted away from southern China. Extension culminated in seafloor spreading around 30 million years ago, a process that propagated to the SW resulting in the V-shaped basin we see today, extension ceased around 17 million years ago
24.
Shenzhen
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Shenzhen is a major city in Guangdong Province, China and one of the five largest and wealthiest cities of China. The city is located north of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and holds sub-provincial administrative status. Shenzhen was a town of 30,000 people on the route of the Kowloon–Canton Railway. That changed in 1979 when Shenzhen was promoted to city-status and in 1980 designated China’s first Special Economic Zone. According to the Government report for 2015, Shenzhen had transformed into a city with a population of 10,778,900, Shenzhen was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world during the 1990s and the 2000s. Shenzhen is a financial center in southern China. The city is home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as well as the headquarters of numerous high-tech companies, Shenzhen ranks 19th in the 2016 edition of the Global Financial Centres Index published by the Z/Yen Group and Qatar Financial Centre Authority. It also has one of the busiest container ports in the world, human habitation in Shenzhen dates back to ancient times. The earliest archaeological remains so far unearthed are shards from a site at Xiantouling on Dapeng Bay, from the Han dynasty onwards, the area around Shenzhen was a center of the salt monopoly, thus meriting special Imperial protection. Salt pans are still visible around the Pearl River area to the west of the city and are commemorated in the name of Yantian District, the settlement at Nantou was the political center of the area from early antiquity. In the year 331 AD, six counties covering most of modern southeastern Guangdong were merged into one province or “jun” named Dongguan with its center at Nantou. As well as being a center of the politically and fiscally critical salt trade, the main shipping route to India, Arabia and the Byzantine Empire started at Guangzhou. As early as the century, chronicles record the Nantou area as being a major commercial center. It was also as a defense center guarding the southern approaches to the Pearl River. Shenzhen was also involved in the surrounding the end of the Southern Song dynasty. The Imperial court, fleeing Kublai Khan’s forces, established itself in the Shenzhen area and he jumped off a cliff with Emperor Bing, aged 7, the last emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty strapped to his back, killing both. In the late 19th century the Chiu or Zhao clan in Hong Kong identified that Chiwan, the tomb, since restored, is still at the same location. Earliest known records that carried the name Shenzhen dates from 1410, local people called the drains in paddy fields “zhen”
25.
District (China)
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The term district, in the context of China, is used to refer to several unrelated political divisions in both ancient and modern China. In the modern context, district or sub-city, formally city-governed district, city-controlled district, the rank of a district derives from the rank of its city. Districts of a municipality are prefecture-level, districts of a city are sub-prefecture-level. It was also used to refer the obsolete County-controlled districts. However, if the district is encountered in the context of ancient Chinese history, then it is a translation for xian. As a result, districts were also mostly urban or suburban in nature, after the 1980s, prefectures began to be replaced with prefecture-level cities. From then on, cities in mainland China became just like any other division, containing urban areas, towns, villages. These cities are subdivided into districts, counties, autonomous counties, at the same time, counties and county-level cities began to be replaced with districts, especially after 1990. From then onwards, districts were no longer strictly an urban entities — some districts today are just like counties, with a large towns, a regular district under a municipality or prefecture-level city. A type of city districts that are created for ethnic minorities. Currently there are 4 such ethnic districts, three in Henan and one in Heilongjiang, chanhe Hui District Guancheng Hui District Shunhe Hui District Meilisi Daur District Huimin District A special county-level division located in Guizhou. Liuzhi Special District, Liupanshui A special Sub-prefectural-level forestry district located in Hubei, shennongjia A county-controlled district sometimes translated as county-governed district, county district or sub-county, is a sub-county in the Peoples Republic of China. A branch of a county government, a public office is the administrative office in a district. A county-controlled district was once an important subdivision of a county all over China from 1950s to 1990s and it was common for there to be about 5 to 10 districts in a county, then about 3 to 5 towns and townships in a district. After the 1990s, county-controlled districts began to be phased out, if the word district is encountered in the context of ancient Chinese history, then the word is a translation for xian, another type of administrative division in China. Xian has been translated using several English terms, in the context of ancient history, district and prefecture are commonly used, while county is used for more contemporary contexts. See Counties of the Peoples Republic of China for more information on the xian of China, list of districts in China District
26.
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
27.
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
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Lufeng, Guangdong
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Lufeng, formerly romanized as Lukfung, is a county-level county-level city in Guangdong, China, administered as a part of the prefecture-level city of Shanwei. It lies on the mainland on coast of the South China Sea east of Hong Kong, under the Qing, the area was known as Lufeng County. Together with neighboring Haifeng, it formed the short-lived Hailufeng Soviet in 1927 and it was later promoted to county-level city status. The area rose to prominence in the early 21st century as a scene of unrest, fresh protests broke out in December, when one of the village leaders died in the police custody. The police blocked the roads leading to the village, as of 2005 years end, the city comprises three urban subdistricts and 17 towns. These are organised into 47 neighbourhood committees and 280 village committees, the citys executive, legislature and judiciary are located in the Donghai Subdistrict, together with the CPC subbranch and PSB suboffice. Wukan Village, site of the Wukan protests, is located in the Donghai subdistrict. Therefore, dialects of both Min Nan and Hakka are spoken, in addition to Mandarin, which is used in official, the Hailufeng dialect, however, only refers to the Hokkien variant. Triad Societies, Vol.5, Abingdon, Routledge, reprinted 2000
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Pratas Islands
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The Pratas Islands, also known as the Dongsha Islands, are an atoll in the north of the South China Sea consisting of three islets about 340 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong. Excluding their associated EEZ and territorial waters, the islets comprise about 240 ha, the Peoples Republic of China claims the islands, but the Republic of China controls them and has declared them a national park. The main island of the group—Pratas Island—is the largest of the South China Sea Islands, the English name of the islands derives from the Portuguese Ilhas das Pratas, which was given to the atoll in the 16th century owing to its round shape. Dongsha is the romanization of the Chinese name Dōngshā Qúndǎo. The name distinguishes it from Xisha, the archipelago, better known as the Paracel Islands. The Pratas Islands were first recorded by the Chinese over 1000 years ago in the book Guangzhou Ji written by Pei Yuan during the Jin Dynasty, Chinese fishermen fished in the sea around the Pratas by that time. The East Indiaman Earl Talbot was wrecked on the Pratas Islands on or about 22 October 1800 with the loss of all aboard, at the time the islands were known to British sailors as the Perates. Then the British screw sloop HMS Reynard was wrecked in 1851 while going to the aid of another wrecked vessel, between 1859 and 1861 there was a correspondence between the British Colonial Office and the Hong Kong colonial authorities about building a lighthouse on the main island on the atoll. Despite an offer by a British businessman in Xiamen to build it, it was decided that the cost was too great and the matter lapsed. On the resulting chart three positions are proposed for a lighthouse, on Pratas Island, on the north-east corner, in the north-east corner of the lagoon the chart notes Anchorage for junks indicating regular use by fishing and other small vessels taking shelter. The charts rubric noted that the available safe draft for vessels entering was only 15 feet, Japanese naval personnel occupied Pratas Island during World War II. The landing party destroyed a tower, weather station, fuel and ammunition dumps. No lives were lost during this raid as all of the occupants fled just days prior to Bluegills raid. The islands were restored to the Republic of Chinas Guangdong Province. While underway in the South China Sea on 18 July 1965, the USS Frank Knox ran aground on Pratas Reef, the islands have been uninhabited, yet nations have claimed them to be their overseas territory. After World War II, the islands and the sea around them were mandated by United Nations, in the Journal of Science there is a nine-page article entitled The Natural History of Pratas Island in the China Sea by Dr. Cuthbert Collingwood, the naturalist on board HMS Serpent. It describes what was observed, especially bird life, during a visit of two days while the ship lay at anchor. Collingwood explored the island on 30 April 1866, the islands are currently administered by the Republic of China with the postal code 817
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Towns of the People's Republic of China
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When referring to political divisions of China, town is the standard English translation of the Chinese 镇. It is an administrative unit, i. e. one of the units into which counties. Another common fourth-level unit is the township, a township is typically smaller in population, similarly to a higher-level administrative units, the borders of a town would typically include an urban core, as well as rural area with some villages. For example, the county government of Tongshan County, Hubei is located in Tongyang Town, road signs would also normally show distance to Tongshan rather than Tongyang
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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/
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Humid subtropical climate
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A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterised by hot, usually humid summers and mild to cool winters. It normally lies on the southeast side of all continents, generally between latitudes 25° and 40° and it tends to be located at coastal or near coastal locations. However, in cases it extends inland, most notably in China. Under the Köppen climate classification, subtropical climates are found in the warmest parts of his Warm Temperate climates or Cfa and this climate features mean temperatures in the coldest month between 0 °C and 18 °C and mean temperatures in the warmest month 22 °C or higher. However, while some climatologists have opted to describe this type as a humid subtropical climate Köppen himself never used this term. The humid subtropical climate classification was created under the Trewartha Climate classification. The Trewartha system was a 1966 update of the Köppen climate classification and this was seen to effectively separate temperate climates like London or New York City from true subtropical locations like Brisbane or Savannah for example. Rainfall often shows a peak, especially where monsoons are well developed, as in Southeast Asia. Most summer rainfall occurs during thunderstorms that build up due to the surface heating and strong subtropical sun angle. Weak tropical lows that move in from adjacent warm tropical oceans, winter rainfall is often associated with large storms in the westerlies that have fronts that reach down into subtropical latitudes. However, many subtropical climates such as southeast Asia or Florida have very dry winters, with frequent brush fires, in Africa, the humid subtropical climates are found in two separate areas on the southern hemisphere of the continent. The Cwa climate is found over a portion of the interior of the Middle. Some lower portions of the Ethiopian Highlands also have this climate, the climate is also found in the narrow coastal sections of southern and eastern South Africa, primarily in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape provinces. South Africas version of this climate features heavy oceanic influences resulting in milder temperatures. This is particularly evident in its winters when temperatures do not drop as low as in other regions within the humid subtropical category. Locations in Asia with a subtropical climate differ from those in other continents in that they often have marked seasonal differences in precipitation. Cities near the boundary of this zone include Hong Kong, Hanoi. At Hainan Island and in Taiwan, the transitions from subtropical into fully tropical
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Precipitation
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In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel, Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and precipitates. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but suspensions, because the vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated, Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers, moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is active when freezing rain is occurring. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain, provided necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely stratus and cumulonimbus. Eventually, the droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy, thundersnow is possible within a cyclones comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, on the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating. The movement of the trough, or intertropical convergence zone. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 cubic kilometres of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres over land. Given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres, Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies, e. g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 km3 of it over the oceans, given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice
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Relative humidity
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Relative humidity is the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapor to the equilibrium vapor pressure of water at a given temperature. Relative humidity depends on temperature and the pressure of the system of interest and it requires less water vapor to attain high relative humidity at low temperatures, more water vapour is required to attain high relative humidity in warm or hot air. Humans are sensitive to high humidity because the body uses evaporative cooling, enabled by perspiration. Perspiration evaporates from the more slowly under humid conditions than under arid. For example, if the air temperature is 24 °C and the humidity is zero percent. If the relative humidity is 100 percent at the air temperature. In other words, if the air is 24 °C and contains saturated water vapor, then the human body cools itself at the rate as it would if it were 27 °C. The heat index and the humidex are indices that reflect the effect of temperature. In cold climates, the temperature causes lower capacity for water vapour to flow about. Dry cracked skin can result from dry air, low humidity causes tissue lining nasal passages to dry, crack and become more susceptible to penetration of Rhinovirus cold viruses. Low humidity is a cause of nosebleeds. The use of a humidifier in homes, especially bedrooms, can help with these symptoms, indoor relative humidities should be kept above 30% to reduce the likelihood of the occupants nasal passages drying out. Humans can be comfortable within a range of humidities depending on the temperature—from thirty to seventy percent—but ideally between 50% and 60%. Very low humidity can create discomfort, respiratory problems, and aggravate allergies in some individuals, in the winter, it is advisable to maintain relative humidity at 30 percent or above. Extremely low relative humidities may also cause eye irritation, wooden furniture can shrink, causing the paint that covers these surfaces to fracture. When the temperature is low and the humidity is high. When relative humidity approaches 100 percent, condensation can occur on surfaces, leading to problems with mold, corrosion, decay, condensation can pose a safety risk as it can promote the growth of mold and wood rot as well as possibly freezing emergency exits shut. The basic principles for buildings, above, also apply to vehicles, in addition, there may be safety considerations
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Sunshine duration
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It is a general indicator of cloudiness of a location, and thus differs from insolation, which measures the total energy delivered by sunlight over a given period. Sunshine duration is usually expressed in hours per year, or in hours per day, the first measure indicates the general sunniness of a location compared with other places, while the latter allows for comparison of sunshine in various seasons in the same location. Another often-used measure is percentage ratio of recorded bright sunshine duration, an important use of sunshine duration data is to characterize the climate of sites, especially of health resorts. This also takes account the psychological effect of strong solar light on human well-being. It is often used to promote tourist destinations, if the Sun were to be above the horizon 50% of the time for a standard year consisting of 8,760 hours, apparent maximal daytime duration would be 4,380 hours for any point on Earth. However, there are physical and astronomical effects that change that picture, namely, atmospheric refraction allows the Sun to be still visible even when it physically sets below the horizon. For that reason, average daytime is longest in polar areas, places on the Arctic Circle have the longest total annual daytime,4,647 hours, while the North Pole receives 4,575. Because of elliptic nature of the Earths orbit, the Southern Hemisphere is not symmetrical, the Equator has a total daytime of 4,422 hours per year. Given the theoretical maximum of daytime duration for a given location, bright sunshine hours represent the total hours when the sunlight is stronger than a specified threshold, as opposed to just visible hours. Visible sunshine, for example, occurs around sunrise and sunset, measurement is performed by instruments called sunshine recorders. For the specific purpose of sunshine duration recording, Campbell–Stokes recorders are used, when the intensity exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the tape burns. The total length of the trace is proportional to the number of bright hours. Another type of recorder is the Jordan sunshine recorder, newer, electronic recorders have more stable sensitivity than that of the paper tape. In 2003, the duration was finally defined as the period during which direct solar irradiance exceeds a threshold value of 120 W/m². The sky is clear in these regions, and fair weather is virtually perpetual, the descending branch of the Hadley cell and the long-term lack of atmospheric disturbances helps to explain the seemingly endless supply of sunny, cloud-free days in the deserts. Low clouding conditions are associated with rainfall shortage, as seen in these dry regions. In the belt encompassing northern Chad and the Tibesti Mountains, northern Sudan, southern Libya, some places in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula receive 3, 600–3,800 hours of bright sunshine annually. The largest sun-baked region in the world is North Africa, the sunniest month in the world is December in Eastern Antarctica, with almost 23 hours of bright sun daily
