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.
Autonomous regions of China
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An autonomous region is a first-level administrative subdivision of China. Like Chinese provinces, a region has its own local government. An autonomous region is a minority entity which has a population of a particular minority ethnic group. The Inner Mongolia autonomous region was established in 1947, Xinjiang was made autonomous in 1955, Guangxi and Ningxia in 1958, and Tibet in 1965. The designation of Guangxi and Ningxia as Zhuang and Hui autonomous areas, respectively, was protested by the local Han Chinese. Although Mongols made up less than a percentage of Inner Mongolia. Note, In the Third Largest Ethnic Group column is the group given in brackets, after the names of the autonomous regions. Administrative divisions of China Provinces of China Special administrative regions of China Autonomous prefectures of China
4.
Inner Mongolia
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Its capital is Hohhot, and other major cities include Baotou, Chifeng, and Ordos. It is the third largest subdivision of China, spanning approximately 1,200,000 km2 or 12% of Chinas total land area and it recorded a population of 24,706,321 in the 2010 census, accounting for 1. 84% of Mainland Chinas total population. Inner Mongolia is the countrys 23rd most populous province-level division, the majority of the population in the region is Han Chinese, with a sizeable titular Mongol minority. In Chinese, the region is known as Inner Mongolia, where the terms of Inner/Outer are derived from Manchu dorgi/tulergi. The term Inner 内 referred to the Nei Fan 内番, i. e. those descendants of Genghis Khan who granted the title khan in Ming and Qing Dynasties and lived in part of southern part of Mongolia. In recent years, some Mongols began to call Inner Mongolia Nan Menggu, literally South Mongolia, much of what is known about the history of Greater Mongolia, including Inner Mongolia, is known through Chinese chronicles and historians. Slab Grave cultural monuments are found in northern, central and eastern Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, north-western China, Mongolian scholars prove that this culture related to the Proto-Mongols. During the Zhou Dynasty, central and western Inner Mongolia were inhabited by peoples such as the Loufan, Linhu. During the Warring States period, King Wuling of the state of Zhao based in what is now Hebei, after destroying the Dí state of Zhongshan in what is now Hebei province, he defeated the Linhu and Loufan and created the commandery of Yunzhong near modern Hohhot. King Wuling of Zhao also built a long wall stretching through the Hetao region and he also maintained two commanderies in the region, Jiuyuan and Yunzhong, and moved 30,000 households there to solidify the region. After the Qin Dynasty collapsed in 206 BC, these efforts were abandoned, during the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu sent the general Wei Qing to reconquer the Hetao region from the Xiongnu in 127 BC. After the conquest, Emperor Wu continued the policy of building settlements in Hetao to defend against the Xiong-Nu, in that same year he established the commanderies of Shuofang and Wuyuan in Hetao. At the same time, what is now eastern Inner Mongolia was controlled by the Xianbei, during the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xiongnu who surrendered to the Han Dynasty began to be settled in Hetao, and intermingled with the Han immigrants in the area. Hetao was then taken over by the Khitan Empire, founded by the Khitans and they were followed by the Western Xia of the Tanguts, who took control of what is now the western part of Inner Mongolia. The Khitans were later replaced by the Jurchens, precursors to the modern Manchus, after Genghis Khan unified the Mongol tribes in 1206 and founded the Mongol Empire, the Tangut Western Xia empire was ultimately conquered in 1227, and the Jurchen Jin dynasty fell in 1234. In 1271, Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan established the Yuan dynasty, Kublai Khans summer capital Shangdu was located near present-day Dolonnor. During that time Ongud and Khunggirad peoples dominated the area of what is now Inner Mongolia, after the Yuan dynasty was overthrown by the Han-led Ming dynasty in 1368, the Ming captured parts of Inner Mongolia including Shangdu and Yingchang. The Ming rebuilt the Great Wall of China at its present location, the Ming established the Three Guards composed of the Mongols there
5.
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
6.
GDP
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Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
7.
Renminbi
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The renminbi /ˌrɛnmɪnˈbiː/ is the official currency of the Peoples Republic of China. The yuan is the unit of the renminbi, but is also used to refer to the Chinese currency in general. The distinction between the terms renminbi and yuan is similar to that between sterling and pound, which refer to the British currency and its primary unit. One yuan is subdivided into 10 jiao, and a jiao in turn is subdivided into 10 fen, the ISO code for renminbi is CNY, or also CNH when traded in off-shore markets such as Hong Kong. The currency is often abbreviated RMB, or indicated by the yuan sign ¥, in Chinese texts the currency may also be indicated with the Chinese character for the yuan, 圆. The renminbi is legal tender in mainland China, but not in Hong Kong or Macau, renminbi is sometimes accepted in Hong Kong and Macau, and are easily exchanged in the two territories, with banks in Hong Kong allowing people to maintain accounts in RMB. The currency is issued by the Peoples Bank of China, the authority of China. Until 2005, the value of the renminbi was pegged to the US dollar and it has previously been claimed that the renminbis official exchange rate was undervalued by as much as 37. 5% against its purchasing power parity. Since 2006, the exchange rate has been allowed to float in a narrow margin around a fixed base rate determined with reference to a basket of world currencies. The Chinese government has announced that it gradually increase the flexibility of the exchange rate. As a result of the rapid internationalization of the renminbi, it became the worlds 8th most traded currency in 2013, and 5th in 2015. On 1 October 2016, the RMB became the first emerging market currency to be included in the IMFs special drawing rights basket, a variety of currencies circulated in China during the Republic of China era, most of which were denominated in the unit yuán. Each was distinguished by a name, such as the fabi, the gold yuan. During the era of the economy, the value of the renminbi was set to unrealistic values in exchange with western currency. The unrealistic levels at which exchange rates were pegged led to a black market in currency transactions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, China worked to make the RMB more convertible, through the use of swap centres, the exchange rate was brought to realistic levels and the dual track currency system was abolished. As of 2013, the renminbi is convertible on current accounts, the ultimate goal has been to make the RMB fully convertible. From 1949 until the late 1970s, the state fixed Chinas exchange rate at a highly overvalued level as part of the countrys import -substitution strategy
8.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
9.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
10.
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
11.
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
12.
Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet
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The Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet is the writing system used for the standard dialect of the Mongolian language in the modern state of Mongolia. It has a phonemic orthography, meaning that there is a fair degree of consistency in the representation of individual sounds. Cyrillic has not been adopted as the system in the Inner Mongolia region of China. Mongolian Cyrillic is the most recent of the writing systems that have been used for Mongolian. It is a Cyrillic alphabet and is similar to, for example, the Bulgarian alphabet. It was introduced in the 1940s in the Mongolian Peoples Republic under Soviet influence, after the Mongolian democratic revolution in 1990, the traditional Mongolian script was briefly considered to replace Cyrillic, but this has not come to fruition. Nevertheless, the Mongolian script has become a subject in primary and secondary schooling and is slowly gaining in popularity. Thus, the Cyrillic script continues to be used in everyday life, the Cyrillic alphabet used for Mongolian is as follows, Үү and Өө are sometimes also written as Її and Єє respectively, when using Russian software or keyboards that do not support them. Initial long vowels and non-initial full vowels are written with double letters, while initial short vowels. Conversely, every vowel letter except у and ү can also represent schwa, palatalization is indicated by и, the soft sign ь or е, ё, я and ю after the palatalized consonant. These latter letters are pronounced without in that position, Щ is never used in Mongolian and only used in Russian words containing the letter. Its actual pronunciation in loans by monolingual Mongolians is unknown, the difference between might be dialectal, while the difference between ө~o is positional. /ɡ/ and /ɢ/ are both indicated by the letter г ⟨g⟩, but the value of that letter is mostly predictable. In words with front vowels, it always means /ɡ/, because only /ɡ/ occurs in such words. In words with vowels, it always means /ɢ/, except syllable-finally. Similarly, a vowel is added to final н ⟨n⟩ to make it denote /n/. ф and к are loan consonants and will often be adapted into the Mongolian sound system as and
13.
Mongolian script
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Derived from Sogdian, Mongolian is a true alphabet, with separate letters for consonants and vowels. The Mongolian script has adapted to write languages such as Oirat. Alphabets based on this classical vertical script are used in Inner Mongolia and other parts of China to this day to write Mongolian, Xibe and, experimentally, the Mongolian vertical script developed as an adaptation of the Sogdian to the Mongolian language. From the seventh and eighth to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in the western dialect, materials of the Arab-Mongolian and Persian-Mongolian dictionaries, Mongolian texts in Arabic transcription, etc. The development over this period explains why Mongolian script looks like a vertical Arabic script, zain was dropped as it was redundant for. Various schools of orthography, some using diacritics, were developed to avoid ambiguity, the Uyghur script and its descendants—Mongolian, Oirat Clear, Manchu, and Buryat—are the only vertical scripts written from left to right. Mongols learned their script as a syllabary, dividing the syllables into twelve different classes, based on the final phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended in vowels. The Manchus followed the same syllabic method when learning Manchu script, Manchus when learning, instead of saying l, a---la, l, o---lo, etc. were taught at once to say la, lo, etc. Many more syllables than are contained in their syllabary might have formed with their letters. Manchu children were taught the language via the syllabic method, some westerners learn the script in an alphabetic manner instead. Today, the opinion on whether it is alphabet or syllabic in nature is still split between different experts, in China, it is considered syllabic and Manchu is still taught in this manner. The alphabetic approach is used mainly by foreigners who want to learn the language, studying Manchu script as a syllabary takes a longer time. The Traditional Mongolian script is known by a variety of names. Due to its shape like Uighur script, it known as the Uighurjin Mongol script. The name Old Mongol script stuck, and it is known as such among the older generation. It does not distinguish several vowels and consonants that were not required for Uyghur, the result is somewhat comparable to the situation of English, which must represent ten or more vowels with only five letters and uses the digraph th for two distinct sounds. Ambiguity is sometimes prevented by context, as the requirements of vowel harmony, moreover, as there are few words with an exactly identical spelling, actual ambiguities are rare for a reader who knows the orthography. Letters have different forms depending on their position in a word, initial, medial, in some cases, additional graphic variants are selected for visual harmony with the subsequent character
14.
Autonomous administrative divisions of China
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These areas are recognized in the PRCs constitution and are nominally given a number of rights not accorded to other administrative divisions. For example, Tibetan minorities in Autonomous regions are granted rights and support not given to the Han Chinese, such as fiscal and medical subsidies. At the fourth level,1 ethnic sumu and over 270 ethnic townships also exist, as these autonomous areas were created by the PRC, they are not recognised by the Republic of China on Taiwan which ruled Mainland China before the PRCs creation. This distinction is not reflected in translation into English, some autonomous areas have more than one specified minority, which tend to be listed in the name of the prefecture, creating rather long names. The constitution states that the head of government of autonomous areas must be of the ethnic group as specified by the autonomous area. In addition, the head of government of autonomous region is known as a chairman, unlike provinces. Of the five regions, only Tibet has an absolute majority of the designated ethnic group, namely. The remaining three regions have absolute majorities of Han Chinese, the majority ethnicity of China. Autonomous regions, prefectures, counties, and banners were established after communist takeover, at first, the nomenclature of these autonomous areas were somewhat confused, with autonomous regions appearing at the province, prefecture, county, and township levels. Eventually the nomenclature was standardized to the conventions used today, the first autonomous region to be established was Inner Mongolia, created within communist-held territory in 1947, two years before the establishment of the Peoples Republic. Xinjiang was converted from a province to a region in 1955. Guangxi and Ningxia followed in 1957, and Tibet Autonomous Region was formally established in 1965, map show all Autonomous with ethnic Карта всех автономии с указанием национальности
15.
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
16.
Yellow River
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The Yellow River or Huang He is the second-longest river in Asia, following the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of 5,464 km. Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai province of western China, it flows through nine provinces, the Yellow River basin has an east–west extent of about 1,900 kilometers and a north–south extent of about 1,100 km. Its total basin area is about 742,443 square kilometers and its basin was the birthplace of ancient Chinese civilization, and it was the most prosperous region in early Chinese history. Early Chinese literature including the Yu Gong or Tribute of Yu dating to the Warring States period refers to the Yellow River as simply 河, the first appearance of the name 黃河 is in the Book of Han written during the Eastern Han dynasty about the Western Han dynasty. The adjective yellow describes the color of the muddy water in the lower course of the river. One of its older Mongolian names was the Black River, because the river runs clear before it enters the Loess Plateau, in Mongolia itself, it is simply called the Šar Mörön. In Qinghai, the rivers Tibetan name is River of the Peacock above sea level they are the two largest plateau freshwater lakes nationwide, flowing east at the eastern edge of the Amne Machin Mountains, the Yellow River enters Maqu County in Gansu. Here, the river skirts through the peat bog known as the Zoigê Wetlands. Flowing now along the edge of Amne Machin, the river reenters Qinghai. The valley section stretches from Longyang Gorge in Qinghai to Qingtong Gorge in Gansu, steep cliffs line both sides of the river. The water bed is narrow and the drop is large, so the flow in this section is extremely turbulent. There are 20 gorges in this section, the most famous of these being the Longyang, Jishi, Liujia, Bapan, the flow conditions in this section makes it the best location for hydroelectric plants. The Yellow River exits Qinghai for the second and final time in these gorges, downstream from the Yanguo Gorge, the provincial capital of Lanzhou is built upon the Yellow Rivers banks. The Yellow River flows northeasterly out of Gansu and into Ningxia before the Qingtong Gorge, after emerging from the Qingtong Gorge, the river comes into a section of vast alluvial plains, the Yinchuan Plain and Hetao Plain. In this section, the regions along the river are mostly deserts and grasslands, the Hetao Plain has a length of 900 km and width of 30 to 50 km. It is historically the most important irrigation plain along the Yellow River, the Ordos Loop formed by an enormous twist of the Yellow River, beginning at Zhongning County in Ningxia and ending with a drastic eastward turn at its confluence with the Wei at Tongguan in Shaanxi. However, the division for the middle reaches of the river run from Hekou in Togtoh County, Inner Mongolia, to Zhengzhou. The middle reaches are 1,206 km long, with an area of 344,000 square kilometers,45. 7% of the total, with a total elevation drop of 890 m
17.
Gobi Desert
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The Gobi Desert is a large desert region in Asia. It covers parts of northern and northwestern China, and of southern Mongolia, the Gobi is most notable in history as part of the great Mongol Empire, and as the location of several important cities along the Silk Road. The Gobi is a rain shadow desert, formed by the Himalayan mountain range blocking rain-carrying clouds from the Indian Ocean reaching the Gobi territory, the Gobi measures over 1,600 km from southwest to northeast and 800 km from north to south. The desert is widest in the west, along the joining the Lake Bosten. It occupies an arc of land 1,295,000 km2 in area as of 2007, it is the fifth-largest desert in the world, much of the Gobi is not sandy but has exposed bare rock. The Gobi is a desert, with frost and occasionally snow occurring on its dunes. Besides being quite far north, it is located on a plateau roughly 910–1,520 metres above sea level. An average of approximately 194 millimetres of rain falls annually in the Gobi, additional moisture reaches parts of the Gobi in winter as snow is blown by the wind from the Siberian Steppes. These winds cause the Gobi to reach extremes of temperature ranging from −40 °C or −40 °F in winter to 45 °C or 113 °F in summer, the climate of the Gobi is one of great extremes, combined with rapid changes of temperature of as much as 35 °C. These can occur not only seasonally but within 24 hours, in southern Mongolia, the temperature has been recorded as low as −32.8 °C. In contrast, in Alxa, Inner Mongolia, it rises as high as 37 °C in July, average winter minimums are a frigid −25 °C while summertime temperatures are warm to hot, with highs that range up to 50 °C. Most of the falls during the summer. Hence, the icy sandstorms and snowstorms of spring and early summer plus early January, the Gobi Desert is the source of many important fossil finds, including the first dinosaur eggs. They are occasionally visited by snow leopards, brown bears, drought-adapted shrubs in the desert included gray sparrows saltwort, gray sagebrush, and low grasses such as needle grass and bridlegrass. Several large nature reserves have established in the Gobi, including Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park, Great Gobi A. The area is vulnerable to trampling by livestock and off-road vehicles, in Mongolia, grasslands have been degraded by goats, which are raised by nomadic herders as source of cashmere wool. The economic trends of livestock privatization and the collapse of the economy have caused people to return to subsistence rural lifestyles. Large copper and gold deposits located at Oyuu Tolgoi, about 80 kilometres from the Chinese border into Mongolia, are being investigated for development as mining operations
18.
Ordos Desert
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The Ordos Desert, also known as the Mu Us Desert, is a desert and steppe region lying on a plateau in the south of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of the Peoples Republic of China. The soil of the Ordos is a mixture of clay and sand and and it extends over an area of approximately 90,650 km². It comprises two large deserts, the 7th largest desert in China, the Kubuqi Desert in the north, and the 8th largest desert in China, the Ordos Desert is almost completely encircled by the Great Bend of the Yellow River in the west, north, and east. Mountain ranges separate the Ordos from the Gobi Desert north and east of the Yellow River, the northern border serves as the southern border of the Mu Us Sandyland. In the south and east, the Great Wall of China separates the Ordos from fertile loess lands. The Ordos covers the section of the Inner Mongolia, an Autonomous Region of China, the Ningxia, an Autonomous Entity of China. Ancient names of the Ordos region are He-tau and - later - He-nan and it was occupied by horse nomads for many centuries, and these were very often at war with China. In the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, it was occupied by the Xiongnu and this region was a desert during the Late Glacial Maximum. During the Holocene Climatic Optimum the monsoonal rains that reached the Loess Plateau in the modern era pushed the back to the Yellow River. Since then, overgrazing at various periods and in the modern period, the Ordos Desert forms an intermediate step in the descent from the Himalayas to the lowlands of eastern China. The northern part of the bend of the Yellow River is filled with the sands of Kuzupchi River. Eventually the sand dunes cross over to the bank of the Yellow River where they are threaded by the beds of dry watercourses. The desert receives less than 250 mm of precipitation annually, the region has many salt lakes and intermittent streams. Among the sand dunes in the north, shrubs including Hedysarum scoparium and Calligonum arborescens grow in scattered patches, on the left bank of the Huang He, level spaces amongst the dry river beds are studded with little mounds, on which grow stunted Nitraria schoberi and Zygophyllum. Towards the south, sparse vegetation is found. Forest thickets thrive along the river margins, in the Yin Mountains, forests begin at altitudes of 1,600 m and wild flowers grow in great profusion and variety in summer, though with a striking lack of color. In this same border range there is also a greater abundance and variety of animal life. Rare bird species breed in the saline lakes of the Ordos, among them Relict Gulls breeding at Lake Hongjiannao
19.
Desert
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A desert is a barren area of land where little precipitation occurs and consequently living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to the processes of denudation, about one third of the land surface of the world is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the regions where little precipitation occurs. Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation falls, by the temperature that prevails. Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks which consequently break in pieces, although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter and the resulting fragments and this picks up particles of sand and dust and wafts them aloft in sand or dust storms. Wind-blown sand grains striking any solid object in their path can abrade the surface, rocks are smoothed down, and the wind sorts sand into uniform deposits. The grains end up as level sheets of sand or are piled high in billowing sand dunes, other deserts are flat, stony plains where all the fine material has been blown away and the surface consists of a mosaic of smooth stones. These areas are known as desert pavements and little further erosion takes place, other desert features include rock outcrops, exposed bedrock and clays once deposited by flowing water. Temporary lakes may form and salt pans may be left when waters evaporate, there may be underground sources of water in the form of springs and seepages from aquifers. Where these are found, oases can occur, plants and animals living in the desert need special adaptations to survive in the harsh environment. Plants tend to be tough and wiry with small or no leaves, water-resistant cuticles, some annual plants germinate, bloom and die in the course of a few weeks after rainfall while other long-lived plants survive for years and have deep root systems able to tap underground moisture. Animals need to cool and find enough food and water to survive. Many are nocturnal and stay in the shade or underground during the heat of the day and they tend to be efficient at conserving water, extracting most of their needs from their food and concentrating their urine. Some animals remain in a state of dormancy for long periods and they then reproduce rapidly while conditions are favorable before returning to dormancy. People have struggled to live in deserts and the surrounding lands for millennia. Nomads have moved their flocks and herds to wherever grazing is available, the cultivation of semi-arid regions encourages erosion of soil and is one of the causes of increased desertification. Many trade routes have been forged across deserts, especially across the Sahara Desert, large numbers of slaves were also taken northwards across the Sahara
20.
Bayannur
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Bayannur or Bayannaoer is a prefecture-level city in western Inner Mongolia, Peoples Republic of China. Until December 1,2003, the area was called Bayannur League, Bayannur has an administrative area of 65,788 km2. The name of the city in Mongolian means Rich Lake, at the 2010 census, the total population of Bayannur is up to 1,669,915, while the city proper, Linhe District, has 520,300 inhabitants. The Zhao Dynasty controlled an area including modern-day Bayannur, while the Western Han Dynasty established a hierarchical Chinese administrative structure, the Qing Dynasty designated this area as part of Inner Mongolia, but after its overthrow by the Republic of China, Bayannur was assigned to Suiyuan Province. Bayannur is located in the part of inner Mongolia Autonomous region. Neighbouring prefectures are, Baotou Alxa Ordos It also borders Mongolia to the north, the whole area of the prefecture is 65,788 km2 at presert and the total population is nearly 1.7 million. Bayannur features a climate, marked by long, cold and very dry winters, very warm, somewhat humid summers. Most of the falls between July and September, with very little snow in winter. In 2000, there were 1,682,662 inhabitants, At the end of 2004, Bayannur is divided into one district, two counties and four banners, Located in Hetao Plain, Bayannaoer is the largest agricultural hub in Inner Mongolia. Bayannaoer is famous for Bameng braised dishes, meaning braised dishes
21.
Ordos City
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Ordos is one of the twelve major subdivisions of Inner Mongolia, China. It lies within the Ordos Loop of the Yellow River, although mainly rural, Ordos is administered as a prefecture-level city. Its administrative seat is situated in Dongsheng which had a population of 582,544 inhabitants as of the 2010 census, another Banner is being urbanized quickly around the city of Ejin Horo with about 251,894 inhabitants at the 2010 census which is the seat of Ordos Airport. It hosted the 2012 Miss World Final, the area had been administered under the Ih Ju League, also spelled Ikh Juu since the 17th century, and was redesignated a prefecture-level city and renamed to Ordos on 26 February 2001. Ordos means palaces in the Mongolian language, Ordos originally referred to a tribe belonging to the Yeke Juu league and later included the tribe’s area, hence the Ordos, or Ordus, the area within the big bend of the Yellow River. Mongolian ordu, ord ‘court, residence of a ruler, palace, camp’, according to Ramstedt -s is a plural suffix, further, ordu, orda, Turkic orta ‘a center’, Mongolian > Turkish orda ‘camp’ > Hindi urdū > English horde. The name is claimed to be related to the eight white yurts of Genghis Khan. Linguistically, the Ordos dialect of Mongolian is quite different from neighboring Chakhar Mongolian, ordoss prefectural administrative region occupies 86,752 square kilometres and covers the bigger part of the Ordos Desert, although the urban area itself is relatively small. The maximal north-south extent is 340 km, while from east to west it stretches for 400 km, the highest elevation, at 2,149 metres, is located in the west, the lowest point, at 850 m, is in the east. There are two large deserts in the territory of Ordos Shi, Kubuqi Desert in the north and the Maowusu Desert in the south. The Kubuqi Desert occupies 19. 2% of Ordos, or 16,600 km2, while the Maowusu Desert takes up 28. 8% of the area, or 25,000 km2. Ordos features a cold climate, marked by long, cold and very dry winters, very warm, somewhat humid summers. The annual precipitation is 300 to 400 millimetres in the part of the city and 190 to 350 mm in the western part. Most of the falls between July and September, with very little snow in winter, average annual evaporation reaches 2,000 to 3,000 mm. In the city proper, the monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from −10.5 °C in January to 21.0 °C in July, sunshine duration averages 2,700 to 3,200 hours annually. Ordos is one of the most prosperous regions of China when measured by GDP figures, with a nominal per-capita GDP of US$25,239 in 2015, it ranks third among prefecture-level divisions in the entire Chinese mainland. It is extremely rich in resources, having one sixth of the national coal reserves. The pillars of its economy are textiles, coal mining, petrochemicals, electricity generation, Ordos Shi is divided into two districts and seven banners, A large, sparsely inhabited urban real estate development has been constructed 25 km from Dongsheng District
22.
Antipodes
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In geography, the antipode of any place on Earth is the point on the Earths surface that is diametrically opposite to it. A pair of antipodes are two points that are antipodal /ænˈtɪpədəl/ to each other and are connected by a line running through the centre of the Earth. Such points are as far away from each other as possible, in the Northern Hemisphere, the Antipodes may be used to refer to Australia and New Zealand, and Antipodeans to their inhabitants. Geographically the antipodes of Britain and Ireland are in the Pacific Ocean and this gave rise to the name of the Antipodes Islands of New Zealand, which are close to the antipode of London at about 50°S 179°E. The antipodes of Australia are in the North Atlantic Ocean, while parts of Spain, Portugal, approximately 15% of land territory is antipodal to other land, representing approximately 4. 4% of the Earths surface. The antipode of any place on the Earth is the place that is diametrically opposite it, so a line drawn from the one to the passes through the centre of the Earth. For example, the antipodes of New Zealands lower North Island lie in Spain, most of the Earths land surfaces have ocean at their antipodes, this being a consequence of most land being in the land hemisphere. The singular antipode is a back-formation from the plural antipodes, which in Greek is the plural of the singular antipous, sunrise and sunset do not quite oppose each other at antipodes due to refraction of sunlight. If the geographic coordinates of a point on the Earths surface are and this relation holds true whether the Earth is approximated as a perfect sphere or as a reference ellipsoid. For example, the antipode of the point in China at 37° N 119° E is the point in Argentina at 37° S 61° W, the word antipodes comes from the Greek, ἀντίποδες, plural of antipous, with feet opposite, from anti- opposed and pous foot. Medieval illustrations imagine them in some way inverted, with their growing out of their heads. From the time of St Augustine, the Christian church was skeptical of the notion. In 748, in reply to a letter from Saint Boniface, Pope Zachary declared the belief that beneath the earth there was another world and other men, another sun, in his letter, Boniface had apparently maintained that Vergilius of Salzburg held such a belief. The antipodes being an attribute of a spherical Earth, some ancient authors used their perceived absurdity as an argument for a flat Earth and this posed the problem that Christ told the apostles to evangelize all mankind, with regard to the unreachable antipodes, this would have been impossible. Christ would either have appeared a second time, in the antipodes, such an argument was forwarded by the Spanish theologian Alonso Tostado as late as the 15th century and St. Augustine doubts was a response to Columbuss proposal to sail westwards to the Indies. The author of the Norwegian book Konungs Skuggsjá, from around 1250 and he notes that they will see the sun in the north in the middle of the day and that they will have seasons opposite those of the Northern Hemisphere. The earliest surviving account by a European who had visited the Southern Hemisphere is that of Marco Polo and he noted that it was impossible to see the star Polaris from there. The idea of dry land in the southern climes, the Terra Australis, was introduced by Ptolemy, there are no non-stop scheduled flights between any two antipodal locations by commercial airline service—or anything even close
23.
Valdivia
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Valdivia is a city and commune in southern Chile, administered by the Municipality of Valdivia. Since October 2007, Valdivia has been the capital of Los Ríos Region and is also the capital of Valdivia Province, the national census of 2002 census recorded the commune of Valdivia as having 140,559 inhabitants, of whom 127,750 were living in the city. The main economic activities of Valdivia include tourism, wood pulp manufacturing, forestry, metallurgy, the city is also the home of the Austral University of Chile, founded in 1954, and the Centro de Estudios Científicos. The city of Valdivia and the Chiloé Archipelago were once the two southernmost outliers of the Spanish Empire, in the second half of 19th century, Valdivia was the port of entry for German immigrants who were given land and settled in the surrounding areas. In 1960 Valdivia was severely damaged by the Great Chilean earthquake, debris and destroyed buildings from the earthquake can still be found in the suburban areas. In addition, land subsidence and sediments have resulted in complex navigation challenges on the rivers and in some areas. This challenges the Clovis First model of migration to the New World, researchers speculate that the first inhabitants of Valdivia and Chile travelled to America by watercraft and not across a land-bridge in the Bering Strait. By the time of the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores, Valdivia was inhabited by the Huilliche, the Huilliche and Mapuche were both referred to by the Spaniards as Araucanos. Their main language was a variant of Mapudungun, the Mapuche language, a large village called Ainil stood where present-day downtown Valdivia has been developed. The Huilliche called the river, Ainilebu, Ainil seemed to have been an important trade centre, it was a port on the sea and had access to the interior via the network of the Cruces and Calle-Calle rivers, both tributaries of the Valdivia. Ainil may be described as a kind of little Venice, as it had large areas of wetlands, since that period, most of these waterways and wetlands have been drained or filled. The market in Ainil received shellfish and fish from the coast, legumes from Punucapa, and other foods from San José de la Mariquina, a remnant of this ancient trade is the modern Feria Fluvial on the banks of Valdivia River. The surroundings of Valdivia were described as extensive plains having a population that cultivated potatoes, maize, quinoa and legumes. The population has been estimated by historians as 30 to 40 thousand inhabitants as of 1548. Pedro Mariño de Lobera, a conquistador and chronicler, wrote that there were half a million Indians living within ten leagues from the city. Other historians consider these numbers too high and argue that early Spaniards usually exaggerated in their descriptions, later the British naturalist Charles Darwin observed that there is not much cleared land near Valdivia. This suggests that agriculture in Valdivia was far more extensive than the agriculture practiced in the early 19th century at the time of his visit. The first European to visit Valdivia Rivers estuary was the Genoese captain Juan Bautista Pastene and he named the river after the Governor of Chile Pedro de Valdivia
24.
Han Chinese
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The Han Chinese, Han people or simply Han are an ethnic group native to East Asia. They constitute approximately 92% of the population of China, 95% of Taiwan, 76% of Singapore, 23% of Malaysia, Han Chinese are the worlds largest ethnic group with over 1.3 billion people. Similarly, the Chinese language also came to be named the Han language ever since, in the Oxford Dictionary, the Han are defined as The dominant ethnic group in China. In the Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania, the Han are called the dominant population in China, as well as in Taiwan, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the Han are the Chinese peoples especially as distinguished from non-Chinese elements in the population. The name Hanzhong, in turn, was derived from the Han River, which flows through the regions plains. The river, in turn, derives its name from such as Tianhan, Yinhan, Xinghan or Yunhan, all ancient Chinese poetic nicknames for the Milky Way. This gave rise to a commonly used nowadays by overseas Chinese for ethnic identity – Huaren. The term is used in conversation and is also an element in the Cantonese word for Chinatown. The vast majority of Han Chinese – over 1.2 billion of them – live in areas under the jurisdiction of the Peoples Republic of China, where they constitute about 92% of its population. Han Chinese also constitute the majority in both of the administrative regions of the PRC—about 95% and 96% of the population of Hong Kong and Macau. There are over 22 million Han Chinese in Taiwan, they began migrating from the coastal provinces of mainland China to Taiwan during the 13th to 17th century. At first, these migrants chose to settle in locations that bore a resemblance to the areas they had left behind in mainland China, hoklo immigrants from Quanzhou settled in coastal regions, and those from Zhangzhou tended to gather on inland plains, while the Hakka inhabited hilly areas. Clashes between these groups over land, water, and cultural differences led to the relocation of some communities, of about 40 million overseas Chinese worldwide, nearly 30 million live in Southeast Asia. They are collectively called Nanyang Chinese, according to a population genetic study, Singapore is the country with the biggest proportion of Hans in Southeast Asia. Up until the past few decades, overseas Han communities originated predominantly from areas in southern China, christmas Island has a Chinese majority at 70%, large Chinese populations also live in Malaysia and Thailand. Prior to the 1965 split, Malaysia and Singapore used to have the largest overseas Chinese population in the world and this position has since been taken by Thailand. The prehistory of the Han ethnic group is closely intertwined with both records and mythology. Han Chinese trace their ancestry from a confederation of late neolithic/early bronze-age agricultural tribes that lived along the Guanzhong, the Yellow Emperor is traditionally credited to have united with the neighbouring Shennong tribes after defeating their leader, Flame Emperor, at the Battle of Banquan
25.
Mongols
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The Mongols are an East-Central Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia and Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. They also live as minorities in other regions of China, as well as in Russia, Mongolian people belonging to the Buryat and Kalmyk subgroups live predominantly in the Russian federal subjects of Buryatia and Kalmykia. The Mongols are bound together by a heritage and ethnic identity. Their indigenous dialects are known as the Mongolian language. The ancestors of the modern-day Mongols are referred to as Proto-Mongols, broadly defined, the term includes the Mongols proper, Buryats, Oirats, the Kalmyk people and the Southern Mongols. The latter comprises the Abaga Mongols, Abaganar, Aohans, Baarins, Gorlos Mongols, Jalaids, Jaruud, Khishigten, Khuuchid, Muumyangan, the designation Mongol briefly appeared in 8th century records of Tang China to describe a tribe of Shiwei. It resurfaced in the late 11th century during the Khitan-ruled Liao dynasty, after the fall of the Liao in 1125, the Khamag Mongols became a leading tribe on the Mongolian Plateau. However, their wars with the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty and the Tatar confederation had weakened them, in the thirteenth century, the word Mongol grew into an umbrella term for a large group of Mongolic-speaking tribes united under the rule of Genghis Khan. In various times Mongolic peoples have been equated with the Scythians, the Magog, based on Chinese historical texts the ancestry of the Mongolic peoples can be traced back to the Donghu, a nomadic confederation occupying eastern Mongolia and Manchuria. The identity of the Xiongnu is still debated today, although some scholars maintain that they were proto-Mongols, they were more likely a multi-ethnic group of Mongolic and Turkic tribes. It has been suggested that the language of the Huns was related to the Hünnü, the Donghu are mentioned by Sima Qian as already existing in Inner Mongolia north of Yan in 699–632 BCE along with the Shanrong. Mentions in the Yi Zhou Shu and the Classic of Mountains, the Xianbei chieftain was appointed joint guardian of the ritual torch along with Xiong Yi. These early Xianbei came from the nearby Zhukaigou culture in the Ordos Desert, where maternal DNA corresponds to the Mongol Daur people, the Zhukaigou Xianbei had trade relations with the Shang. In the late 2nd century, the Han dynasty scholar Fu Qian wrote in his commentary Jixie that Shanrong, againm in Inner Mongolia another closely connected core Mongolic Xianbei region was the Upper Xiajiadian culture where the Donghu confederation was centered. After the Donghu were defeated by Xiongnu king Modu Chanyu, the Xianbei, tadun Khan of the Wuhuan was the ancestor of the proto-Mongolic Kumo Xi. The Wuhuan are of the direct Donghu royal line and the New Book of Tang says that in 209 BCE, the Xianbei, however, were of the lateral Donghu line and had a somewhat separate identity, although they shared the same language with the Wuhuan. In 49 CE the Xianbei ruler Bianhe raided and defeated the Xiongnu, killing 2000, the Xianbei reached their peak under Tanshihuai Khan who expanded the vast, but short lived, Xianbei state. Three prominent groups split from the Xianbei state as recorded by the Chinese histories, the Rouran, the Khitan people, besides these three Xianbei groups, there were others such as the Murong, Duan and Tuoba
26.
Hui people
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According to a 2011 census, China is home to approximately 10.5 million Hui people, the majority of whom are Chinese-speaking practitioners of Islam, though some may practice other religions. Hui people are ethnically and linguistically similar to Han Chinese with the exception that most of them practice Islam, engendering distinctive cultural characteristics. For example, as Muslims, they follow Islamic dietary laws and reject the consumption of pork, the most common meat consumed in China, the Hui people are one of 56 ethnic groups recognized by China. The government defines the Hui people to include all historically Muslim communities not included in Chinas other ethnic groups, the Hui predominantly speak Chinese, while maintaining some Persian and Arabic phrases. In fact, the Hui ethnic group is unique among Chinese ethnic minorities in that it associates with non-Sinitic languages. The Hui people are concentrated in Northwestern China, but communities exist across the country, e. g. Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Hainan. After the establishment of the Peoples Republic, the term Hui applied to one of Chinas ten historically Islamic minorities, earlier the term referred to Chinese-speaking groups with Muslim ancestry. Practising Islam was not a criterion, use of the Hui category to describe foreign Muslims moving into China dates back to the Song dynasty. Hui people are of varied ancestry, many directly descending from Silk Road travelers and their ancestors include Central Asians, Arabs and Persians who married Hans. West Eurasian DNA is prevalent—6. 7% of Hui peoples maternal genetics have a West Eurasian origin, in subsequent centuries, they gradually mixed with Mongols and Hans, eventually forming the Hui. Nonetheless, included among Huis in Chinese census statistics are members of a few small non-Chinese speaking communities, a small Muslim minority among Yunnans Bai people are classified as Hui as well, as are some groups of Tibetan Muslims. Huihui was the generic term for Chinas Muslims during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Is thought to have its origin in the earlier Huihe or Huihu, although the ancient Uyghurs were not Muslims the name Huihui came to refer to foreigners, regardless of language or origin, by the time of the Yuan. and Ming Dynasties. By the aid of heaven we have pacified you, you are our slaves, yet you do not eat our food or drink. If you slaughter sheep, you will be considered guilty of a crime and he issued a regulation to that effect. All the Muslims say, if someone else slaughters we do not eat, the Chinese called Muslims, Jews and Christians in ancient times by the same name, Hui Hui. Christians were called Hui who abstain from animals without the foot, Muslims were called Hui who abstain from pork. Hui Hui is presently used almost exclusively for Muslims, but Jews were still called Lan mao Hui Hui which means Blue cap Hui Hui
27.
Manchu people
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The Manchu are an ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. They are sometimes called red-tasseled Manchus, a reference to the ornamentation on traditional Manchu hats, the Later Jin, and Qing dynasty are established by Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty in China. Manchus form the largest branch of the Tungusic peoples and are distributed throughout China and they can be found in 31 Chinese provincial regions. They also form the largest minority group in China without an autonomous region, among them, Liaoning has the largest population and Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and Beijing have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the live in Liaoning and one-fifth in Hebei. The Sushen used flint-headed wooden arrows, farmed, hunted and fished, the cognates Sushen or Jichen again appear in the Shan Hai Jing and Book of Wei during the dynastic era referring to the Tungusic Mohe tribes of the far northeast. The Mohe practiced pig farming extensively and were sedentary. They were predominantly farmers and grew soybeans, wheat, millet and rice, in the 10th century CE, the term Jurchen first appeared in documents of the late Tang dynasty in reference to the state of Balhae in present-day northeastern China. Following the fall of Balhae, the Jurchens became vassals of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty, in the year 1114, Wanyan Aguda united the Jurchen tribes and established the Jin dynasty. His brother and successor, Wanyan Wuqimai defeated the Liao dynasty, after the fall of the Liao dynasty, the Jurchens went to war with the Northern Song dynasty, and captured most of northern China in the Jin–Song wars. During the Jin dynasty, the first Jurchen script came into use in the 1120s and it was mainly derived from the Khitan script. The Jurchens were sedentary, settled farmers with advanced agriculture and they farmed grain and millet as their cereal crops, grew flax, and raised oxen, pigs, sheep and horses. Their farming way of life was different from the pastoral nomadism of the Mongols. In 1206, the Mongols, vassals to the Jurchens, rose in Mongolia and their leader, Genghis Khan, led Mongol troops against the Jurchens, who were finally defeated by Ögedei Khan in 1234. From that time, the Jurchens of North China increasingly merged with the Han Chinese while those living in their homeland started to be Mongolized and they adopted Mongolian customs, names and the Mongolian language. As time went on, fewer and fewer Jurchens could recognize their own script, the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty was replaced by the Ming dynasty in 1368. In 1387, Ming forces defeated the Mongol commander Naghachus resisting forces who settled in the Haixi area, at the time, some Jurchen clans were vassals to the Joseon dynasty of Korea such as Odoli and Huligai. Their elites served in the Korean royal bodyguard, the Joseon Koreans tried to deal with the military threat posed by the Jurchen by using both forceful means and incentives, and by launching military attacks
28.
Daur people
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The Daur people are a Mongolic-speaking ethnic group. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized in the Peoples Republic of China, there are also some near Tacheng in Xinjiang, where their ancestors were moved during the Qing Dynasty. Daguur in Mongolian language means follower/copier as in dagakh to follow/copy, there is no written standard, although a Pinyin-based orthography has been devised by the native Daur scholar Merden Enhebatu. The Daur language retains some Khitan substratal features, including a number of lexemes not found in other Mongolic languages and it is made up of three dialects, Bataxan, Hailar, Qiqihar. During Qing rule, some Daurs spoke and wrote Manchu as a second language, genetically, the Daurs are descendants of the Khitan, as recent DNA analyses have proven. In the Qianlong Emperors 钦定《辽金元三史语解》 he retranslates 大贺, a Khitan clan described in the History of Liao and that is the earliest theory that claims Daurs are descendants of Khitans. In the 17th century, some or all of the Daurs lived along the Shilka, upper Amur and they thus gave their name to the region of Dauria, also called Transbaikal, now the area of Russia east of Lake Baikal. By the mid-17th century, the Amur Daurs fell under the influence of the Manchus of the Qing Dynasty which crushed the resistance of Bombogor, leader of the Evenk-Daur Federation in 1640. When the Russian explorers and raiders arrived to the region in the early 1650, they would see the Daur farmers burn their smaller villages. When told by the Russians to submit to the rule of the Tsar and to pay yasak, the Cossacks would then attack, usually being able to take Daur towns with only small losses. For example, Khabarov reported that in 1651 he had only 4 of his Cossacks killed while storming the town of the Daur prince Guigudar. Meanwhile, the Cossacks reported killing 661 Daurs big and small at that town, the captured Daur town of Yaxa became the Russian town Albazin, which was not recaptured by the Qing until the 1680s. When the Japanese invaded the area of present-day Morin Dawa in Inner Mongolia in 1931, there is a very noticeable hierarchic structure. People sharing the surname are in groups called hala, they live together with the same group. Each hala is divided in clans that live in the same town. If a marriage between different clans is made, the continues to live with the clan of his wife without holding property rights. During the winter, the Daur women wear dresses, generally blue in color. The men dress in orejeros caps in fox or red deer skin made for winter, in the summer, they cover the animals head with white colored fabrics or straw hats
29.
Koreans
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Koreans are an ethnic group native to the whole Korean Peninsula and southeastern Manchuria. Over the course of the 20th century, significant Korean communities have emerged in Australia, Canada, United States and, to a lesser extent, as of 2013, there were an estimated 7.4 million ethnic Korean expatriates around the planet. South Koreans refer to themselves as Hanguk-in, or Hanguk-saram, both of which mean Korean nation people, when referring to members of the Korean diaspora, Koreans often use the term Han-in. North Koreans refer to themselves as Joseon-in or Joseon-saram, both of which literally mean Joseon people, using similar words, Koreans in China refer to themselves as Chaoxianzu in Chinese or Joseonjok in Korean, which are cognates that literally mean Joseon ethnic group. Ethnic Koreans living in Russia and Central Asia refer to themselves as Koryo-saram, alluding to Goryeo, Koreans are the descendants of the peoples that migrated for over 13. 000-7.000 years from Southeast Asia and todays Russian Far East into the Korean Peninsula and southern Manchuria. Later Chinese and other, often said to be Siberian or paleo-Asian tribes migrated into parts of Korea, archaeological evidence suggests that most of the later arriving tribes were migrants from south-central Siberia. During the Four Commanderies of Han some Chinese clans migrated to northern Korea, susumu Ōno, Ki-Moon Lee and Choong-Soon Kim suspect that proto-Dravidian people migrated to Korea and parts of Japan. Susumu Ōno suggest also an Austronesian immigration into the Korean peninsula, the largest concentration of dolmens in the world is found on the Korean Peninsula. In fact, with an estimated 35, 000-100,000 dolmen, Korean males also exhibit a moderate frequency of Haplogroup C-M217. About 2% of Korean males belong to Haplogroup D-M174, the D1b-M55 subclade has been found with maximal frequency in a small sample of the Ainu people of Japan, and is generally frequent throughout the Japanese Archipelago. Haplogroup D4 is the modal haplogroup among Koreans and among Northeast Asians in general. Haplogroup B, which very frequently in many populations of Southeast Asia, Polynesia. Haplogroup A has been detected in approximately 7% to 15% of Koreans, Haplogroup A is the most common mtDNA haplogroup among the Chukchi, Eskimo, Na-Dene, and many Amerind ethnic groups of North and Central America. The language of the Korean people is the Korean language, which uses Hangul as its writing system with some Hanja. There are more than 78 million speakers of the Korean language worldwide, estimating the size, growth rate, sex ratio, and age structure of North Koreas population has been extremely difficult. Until release of data in 1989, the 1963 edition of the North Korea Central Yearbook was the last official publication to disclose population figures. After 1963 demographers used varying methods to estimate the population, thus, on the basis of remarks made by President Kim Il-sung in 1977 concerning school attendance, the population that year was calculated at 17.2 million persons. During the 1980s, health statistics, including life expectancy and causes of mortality, were made available to the outside world
30.
Tibetan people
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The Tibetan people are an ethnic group that is native to Tibet. They number an estimate of 7.8 million, significant Tibetan minorities also live outside of Tibet Autonomous Region in China, and in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. Tibetans speak the Tibetic languages, many varieties of which are mutually unintelligible and they belong to the Tibeto-Burman languages. The traditional, or mythological, explanation of the Tibetan peoples origin is that they are the descendants of the human Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa and it is thought that most of the Tibeto-Burman-speakers in Southwest China, including the Tibetans, are direct descendants from the ancient Qiang. Most Tibetans practice Tibetan Buddhism, though some observe the indigenous Bön religion, Tibetan Buddhism influences Tibetan art, drama, and architecture, while the harsh geography of Tibet has produced an adaptive culture of Tibetan medicine and cuisine. As of 2014 Census, there are 2.2 million Tibetans living in the Tibet Autonomous Region, the SIL Ethnologue in 2009 documents an additional 189,000 Tibetic speakers living in India,5,280 in Nepal, and 4,800 in Bhutan. There are Tibetan communities in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Norway, Taiwan, Switzerland, how the current numbers compare to Tibetans historically is a difficult claim. The Central Tibetan Administration claims that the 5.4 million number is a decrease from 6.3 million in 1959 while the Chinese government claims that it is an increase from 2.7 million in 1954. However, the question depends on the definition and extent of Tibet, also, the Tibetan administration did not take a formal census of its territory in the 1950s, the numbers provided by the administration at the time were based on informed guesswork. The Tibetan population growth is attributed by PRC officials to the quality of health. The average life expectancy for Tibetans rose from 35.5 years in 1951 to over 67 years by the end of 2010, infant mortality in China as a whole was officially rated 14 per 1,000 in 2010. Classical Tibetan is a major literary language, particularly for its use in Buddhist literature. Although some of the Qiang peoples of Kham are classified by China as ethnic Tibetans, the Qiangic languages are not Tibetic, Tibetans inherited this adaptation thanks to their denisovan admixture. Nitric oxide causes dilation of blood vessels allowing blood to flow freely to the extremities. This and other advantages in physiological function at high altitudes have been attributed to a mutation in the EPAS1 gene among Tibetans, Tibetans inherited this adaptation thanks to their Denisovan admixture. Modern Tibetan populations are genetically most similar to other modern East Asian populations and they also show genetic affinity for modern Central Asian, then modern Siberian populations. An earlier study in 2010 suggested that the majority of the Tibetan gene pool may have diverged from the Han around 3,000 years ago. However, there are possibilities of much earlier human inhabitation of Tibet, in a 2016 study, the date of divergence between Tibetans and Han Chinese was estimated to have taken place around 15,000 to 9,000 years ago
31.
Zhuang people
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The Zhuang people are an ethnic group who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. Some also live in the Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou and Hunan provinces and they form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the Peoples Republic of China. With the Buyi, Tay–Nùng, and other northern Tai speakers and their population, estimated at 18 million people, makes them the largest minority in China. The Chinese character used for the Zhuang people has changed several times and their autonym, Cuengh in Standard Zhuang, was originally written with the graphic pejorative Zhuàng 獞. Chinese characters typically combine a semantic element or radical and a phonetic element, john DeFrancis calls Zhuàng 獞, with the dog radical 犭 and a tóng 童 phonetic, an ethnic slur and describes how the Peoples Republic of China removed it. In 1949, after the Chinese civil war, the logograph 獞 was officially replaced with Zhuàng 僮, later, during the standardization of simplified Chinese characters, Zhuàng 僮 was changed to a completely different character Zhuàng 壮. The Zhuang languages are a group of mutually unintelligible languages of the Tai family, heavily influenced by nearby varieties of Chinese, the Standard Zhuang language is based on a northern dialect, but few people learn it. Therefore, Zhuang people from different dialect areas use Chinese to communicate each other. According to a 1980s survey, 42% of Zhuang people were monolingual in Zhuang, while 55% were bilingual in Zhuang, Zhuang has been written using logograms based on Chinese characters for over 1,000 years. Standard Zhuang, the official script, was introduced in 1957. However, the traditional character-based script is commonly used in less formal domains. The Zhuang have their own scriptures written in poetic form such as the Baeu Rodo, most Zhuang follow a traditional animist faith known as Shigongism or Moism, which include elements of ancestor worship. The Mo have their own sutra and professional priests known as bu mo who traditionally use chicken bones for divination. In Moism, the creator is known as Bu Luotuo and the universe is tripartite, there are also a number of Buddhists, Taoists, and Christians among the Zhuang. For over one thousand years the Zhuang have used Sawndip to write a variety of literature, including folk songs, operas, poems, scriptures, letters, contracts. Zhuang cuisine includes many salty and sour dishes such as pickled cabbage, pickled vegetables and pork, a common Zhuang drink is oil tea, tea leaves fried in oil with rice grains brewed and drunk with peanuts or a rice cake. While Chinese scholarship continues to place the Zhuang–Dong languages among the Sino-Tibetan family and they have been linked with the Austronesian languages, which dispersed from Taiwan after a migration from the mainland. However, the Austro-Tai hypothesis uniting these families is now supported by few scholars, genetic evidence points out Zhuang possesses a very high frequency of Haplogroup O2 with most of them being subclade O2a making it the most dominant marker, one that they share with Austro-Asiatic
32.
Sibe people
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The Sibe or Xibo are a Tungusic people living mostly in Xinjiang, Jilin and Shenyang in Liaoning. The Sibe form one of the 56 ethnic groups recognized by China. The Sibe are known by variations of their name. According to the Russian scholar Elena P. Lebedeva, the Sibe people originated as a southern and they lived in small town-like settlements, a portion of them nomadic, in the Songyuan and Qiqihar areas of what is now Jilin. When the Buyeo kingdom was conquered by the Xianbei in 286, some historians have theorized that the Xianbei were the direct progenitors of the Sibe, a theory described as politically motivated. Pamela Kyle Crossley writes the Xianbei might have undergone a shift from an earlier Turkic or proto-Mongolian language to a Tungusic one. However, the name Sibe was not used in records during Xianbei times. The Han, Cao Wei, and Jin dynasty at times controlled the Sibe until the advent of the Göktürks, who accorded the Sibe lower status than did the Chinese dynasties. At the height of their territorial dispersion, the Sibe lived in an area bounded by Jilin to the east, Hulunbuir to the west, the Nen River to the north, and the Liao River to the south. After the fall of the Liao dynasty, the Sibe became vassals of the Khorchin Mongols who moved to the Nen, nurhaci, the founder of the Manchu people, routed the Sibe during the battle of Gure in 1593 on his way to founding the Qing dynasty of China. From that point, the Qing contracted the Sibe for logistical support against the Russian Empires expansionism on Chinas northern border, Crossley claims that the Sibe were so well known to Russians moving toward the Pacific that the Russians named Siberia after them. In 1692, the Khorchin dedicated the Sibe, the Gūwalca, the Sibe were incorporated into the Eight Banners and were stationed in Qiqihar and other cities in Northeast China. In 1700, some 20,000 Qiqihar Sibes were resettled in Hohhot,36,000 Songyuan Sibes were resettled in Shenyang, Liaoning. According to Jerry Norman, after a revolt by the Qiqihar Sibes in 1764, in Ili, the Xinjiang Sibe built Buddhist monasteries and cultivated vegetables, tobacco, and poppies. The Sibe population declined after the Qing used them to suppress the Dungan Revolt by the Hui, during the Republic of China, many northeastern Sibe joined anti-Japanese volunteer armies, while northwestern Sibe fought against the Kuomintang during the Ili Rebellion. In 1954, the PRC established the Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County to replace Ningxi County in Xinjiang, historical religions of the Sibe included shamanism and Buddhism. Customary Sibe attire included short buttoned jackets and trousers for men, and close-fitting, long, arranged marriage was common and women had low social status, including no right to inherit property. Nowadays almost all the Sibe wear Western clothing and the clothing is worn by elders during festivals
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Chinese characters
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Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and some other Asian languages. In Standard Chinese, and sometimes also in English, they are called hànzì. They have been adapted to write a number of languages including, Japanese, where they are known as kanji, Korean, where they are known as hanja. Collectively, they are known as CJK characters, in English, they are sometimes called Han characters. Chinese characters constitute the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world, Chinese characters number in the tens of thousands, though most of them are minor graphic variants encountered only in historical texts. Studies in China have shown that literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters. In Japan,2,136 are taught through secondary school, the characters used in Japan are distinct from those used in China in many respects. There are various national standard lists of characters, forms, in South Korea, when Chinese characters are used they are of the traditional variant and are almost identical to those used in places like Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Old Chinese, most words were monosyllabic and there was a correspondence between characters and words. Rather, a character almost always corresponds to a syllable that is also a morpheme. However, there are a few exceptions to this correspondence, including bisyllabic morphemes. Modern Chinese has many homophones, thus the same syllable may be represented by many characters. A single character may also have a range of meanings, or sometimes quite distinct meanings, cognates in the several varieties of Chinese are generally written with the same character. They typically have similar meanings, but often quite different pronunciations and these foreign adaptations of Chinese pronunciation are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations, and have been useful in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese. When the script was first used in the late 2nd millennium BC, words of Old Chinese were generally monosyllabic, increasing numbers of polysyllabic words have entered the language from the Western Zhou period to the present day. The process has accelerated over the centuries as phonetic change has increased the number of homophones and it has been estimated that over two thirds of the 3,000 most common words in modern Standard Chinese are polysyllables, the vast majority of those being disyllables. The most common process has been to form compounds of existing words, words have also been created by adding affixes, reduplication and borrowing from other languages. Polysyllabic words are written with one character per syllable
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Coal
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Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. Coal is composed primarily of carbon, along with quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen. A fossil fuel, coal forms when plant matter is converted into peat, which in turn is converted into lignite, then sub-bituminous coal, after that bituminous coal. This involves biological and geological processes that take place over time, throughout history, coal has been used as an energy resource, primarily burned for the production of electricity and heat, and is also used for industrial purposes, such as refining metals. Coal is the largest source of energy for the generation of electricity worldwide, the extraction of coal, its use in energy production and its byproducts are all associated with environmental and health effects including climate change. Coal is extracted from the ground by coal mining, since 1983, the worlds top coal producer has been China. In 2015 China produced 3,747 million tonnes of coal –47. 7% of 7,861 million tonnes world coal production, in 2015 other large producers were United States, India, European Union and Australia. The word originally took the col in Old English, from Proto-Germanic *kula. In Old Turkic languages, kül is ash, cinders, öčür is quench, the compound charcoal in Turkic is öčür kül, literally quenched ashes, cinders, coals with elided anlaut ö- and inflection affixes -ülmüş. At various times in the geologic past, the Earth had dense forests in low-lying wetland areas, due to natural processes such as flooding, these forests were buried underneath soil. As more and more soil deposited over them, they were compressed, the temperature also rose as they sank deeper and deeper. As the process continued the plant matter was protected from biodegradation and oxidation and this trapped the carbon in immense peat bogs that were eventually covered and deeply buried by sediments. Under high pressure and high temperature, dead vegetation was slowly converted to coal, as coal contains mainly carbon, the conversion of dead vegetation into coal is called carbonization. The wide, shallow seas of the Carboniferous Period provided ideal conditions for coal formation, the exception is the coal gap in the Permian–Triassic extinction event, where coal is rare. Coal is known from Precambrian strata, which predate land plants — this coal is presumed to have originated from residues of algae, in its dehydrated form, peat is a highly effective absorbent for fuel and oil spills on land and water. It is also used as a conditioner for soil to make it able to retain. Lignite, or brown coal, is the lowest rank of coal, jet, a compact form of lignite, is sometimes polished and has been used as an ornamental stone since the Upper Palaeolithic
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Mining
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Mining is extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth usually from an orebody, lode, vein, seam, reef or placer deposits. These deposits form a mineralized package that is of economic interest to the miner, ores recovered by mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, chalk, dimension stone, rock salt, potash, gravel, and clay. Mining is required to obtain any material that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, Mining in a wider sense includes extraction of any non-renewable resource such as petroleum, natural gas, or even water. Mining of stones and metal has been a human activity since pre-historic times, Mining operations usually create a negative environmental impact, both during the mining activity and after the mine has closed. Hence, most of the nations have passed regulations to decrease the impact. Work safety has long been a concern as well, and modern practices have significantly improved safety in mines, levels of metals recycling are generally low. Unless future end-of-life recycling rates are stepped up, some rare metals may become unavailable for use in a variety of consumer products, due to the low recycling rates, some landfills now contain higher concentrations of metal than mines themselves. Since the beginning of civilization, people have used stone, ceramics and, later and these were used to make early tools and weapons, for example, high quality flint found in northern France, southern England and Poland was used to create flint tools. Flint mines have been found in areas where seams of the stone were followed underground by shafts. The mines at Grimes Graves and Krzemionki are especially famous, other hard rocks mined or collected for axes included the greenstone of the Langdale axe industry based in the English Lake District. The oldest-known mine on archaeological record is the Lion Cave in Swaziland, at this site Paleolithic humans mined hematite to make the red pigment ochre. Mines of an age in Hungary are believed to be sites where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons. Ancient Egyptians mined malachite at Maadi, at first, Egyptians used the bright green malachite stones for ornamentations and pottery. Later, between 2613 and 2494 BC, large building projects required expeditions abroad to the area of Wadi Maghareh in order to secure minerals and other resources not available in Egypt itself. Quarries for turquoise and copper were found at Wadi Hammamat, Tura, Aswan and various other Nubian sites on the Sinai Peninsula. Mining in Egypt occurred in the earliest dynasties, the gold mines of Nubia were among the largest and most extensive of any in Ancient Egypt. These mines are described by the Greek author Diodorus Siculus, who mentions fire-setting as one used to break down the hard rock holding the gold. One of the complexes is shown in one of the earliest known maps, the miners crushed the ore and ground it to a fine powder before washing the powder for the gold dust
36.
Electric power
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Electric power is the rate, per unit time, at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second, Electric power is usually produced by electric generators, but can also be supplied by sources such as electric batteries. It is usually supplied to businesses and homes by the power industry through an electric power grid. Electric power is sold by the kilowatt hour which is the product of power in kilowatts multiplied by running time in hours. Electric utilities measure power using an electricity meter, which keeps a total of the electric energy delivered to a customer. Electrical power provides a low form of energy and can be carried long distances and converted into other forms of energy such as motion. Electric power, like power, is the rate of doing work, measured in watts. The term wattage is used colloquially to mean electric power in watts, the potential energy of the charges due to the voltage between the terminals is converted to kinetic energy in the device. These devices are called passive components or loads, they consume electric power from the circuit, converting it to other forms of such as mechanical work, heat, light. Examples are electrical appliances, such as bulbs, electric motors. In alternating current circuits the direction of the voltage periodically reverses, devices in which this occurs are called active devices or power sources, such as electric generators and batteries. Some devices can be either a source or a load, depending on the voltage, for example, a rechargeable battery acts as a source when it provides power to a circuit, but as a load when it is connected to a battery charger and is being recharged. Since electric power can flow either into or out of a component, Electric power flowing out of a circuit into a component is arbitrarily defined to have a positive sign, while power flowing into a circuit from a component is defined to have a negative sign. Thus passive components have positive power consumption, while power sources have negative power consumption and this is called the passive sign convention. In alternating current circuits, energy storage such as inductance and capacitance may result in periodic reversals of the direction of energy flow. The portion of power flow that, averaged over a cycle of the AC waveform. That portion of power due to stored energy, that returns to the source in each cycle, is known as reactive power. Real power is represented as a vector and reactive power is represented as a vertical vector
37.
Grape
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A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus Vitis. Grapes can be fresh as table grapes or they can be used for making wine, jam, juice, jelly, grape seed extract, raisins, vinegar. Grapes are a type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of the grape began 6, 000–8,000 years ago in the Near East. Yeast, one of the earliest domesticated microorganisms, occurs naturally on the skins of grapes, the earliest archeological evidence for a dominant position of wine-making in human culture dates from 8,000 years ago in Georgia. The oldest known winery was found in Armenia, dating to around 4000 BC, by the 9th century AD the city of Shiraz was known to produce some of the finest wines in the Middle East. Thus it has proposed that Syrah red wine is named after Shiraz. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics record the cultivation of grapes, and history attests to the ancient Greeks, Phoenicians. The growing of grapes would later spread to regions in Europe, as well as North Africa. Vitis vinifera cultivars were imported for that purpose, Grapes are a type of fruit that grow in clusters of 15 to 300, and can be crimson, black, dark blue, yellow, green, orange, and pink. White grapes are actually green in color, and are derived from the purple grape. Mutations in two genes of white grapes turn off production of anthocyanins, which are responsible for the color of purple grapes. Anthocyanins and other pigment chemicals of the family of polyphenols in purple grapes are responsible for the varying shades of purple in red wines. Grapes are typically an ellipsoid shape resembling a prolate spheroid, most grapes come from cultivars of Vitis vinifera, the European grapevine native to the Mediterranean and Central Asia. Vitis riparia, a vine of North America, is sometimes used for winemaking. It is native to the entire Eastern U. S. Vitis rotundifolia, the muscadines, used for jams and wine, are native to the Southeastern United States from Delaware to the Gulf of Mexico. Vitis amurensis is the most important Asian species, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization,75,866 square kilometers of the world are dedicated to grapes. Approximately 71% of world production is used for wine, 27% as fresh fruit
38.
Winemaking
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Winemaking or vinification, is the production of wine, starting with selection of the grapes or other produce and ending with bottling the finished wine. Although most wine is made from grapes, it may also be made from fruits or plants. Mead is a wine that is made with honey being the primary ingredient after water, Winemaking can be divided into two general categories, still wine production and sparkling wine production. The science of wine and winemaking is known as oenology, a person who makes wine is traditionally called a winemaker or vintner. After the harvest, the grapes are taken into a winery, at this stage red wine making diverges from white wine making. Red wine is made from the must of red or black grapes and fermentation occurs together with the grape skins, white wine is made by fermenting juice which is made by pressing crushed grapes to extract a juice, the skins are removed and play no further role. Occasionally white wine is made from red grapes, this is done by extracting their juice with minimal contact with the grapes skins. Rosé wines are made from red grapes where the juice is allowed to stay in contact with the dark skins long enough to pick up a pinkish color or by blending red wine with white wine. White and rosé wines extract little of the contained in the skins. To start primary fermentation yeast may be added to the must for red wine or may occur naturally as ambient yeast on the grapes or in the air, yeast may be added to the juice for white wine. During this fermentation, which takes between one and two weeks, the yeast converts most of the sugars in the grape juice into ethanol. The carbon dioxide is lost to the atmosphere, after the primary fermentation of red grapes the free run wine is pumped off into tanks and the skins are pressed to extract the remaining juice and wine. The press wine is blended with the free run wine at the winemakers discretion, the wine is kept warm and the remaining sugars are converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The next process in the making of red wine is malo-lactic conversion and this is a bacterial process which converts crisp, green apple malic acid to soft, creamy lactic acid softening the taste of the wine. Red wine is transferred to oak barrels to mature for a period of weeks or months. The wine must be settled or clarified and adjustments made prior to bottling, the time from harvest to drinking can vary from a few months for Beaujolais nouveau wines to over twenty years for wine of good structure with high levels of acid, tannin or sugar. However, only about 10% of all red and 5% of white wine will taste better after five years than it will after just one year. Depending on the quality of grape and the wine style
39.
Dairy
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A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or processing of animal milk – mostly from cows or goats, but also from buffaloes, sheep, horses, or camels – for human consumption. A dairy is located on a dedicated dairy farm or in a section of a multi-purpose farm that is concerned with the harvesting of milk. For example, in the United States, the dairy farm is commonly called a dairy. The building or farm area where milk is harvested from the cow is called a milking parlor or parlor. The farm area where milk is stored in tanks is known as the farms milk house. Milk is then hauled to a plant, also referred to as a dairy. In New Zealand, farm areas for milk harvesting are also called milking parlours, as in the United States, sometimes milking sheds are referred to by their type, such as herring bone shed or pit parlour. Parlour design has evolved from simple barns or sheds to large structures in which the workflow is very efficiently handled. This on-site processing is a method of producing specialist milk products. In New Zealand English the singular use of the word dairy almost exclusively refers to a corner shop and this usage is historical as such shops were a common place for the public to buy milk products. As an attributive, the word refers to milk-based products, derivatives and processes. A dairy farm produces milk and a dairy factory processes it into a variety of dairy products and these establishments constitute the global dairy industry, a component of the food industry. Milk producing animals have been domesticated for thousands of years, initially, they were part of the subsistence farming that nomads engaged in. As the community moved about the country, their animals accompanied them, protecting and feeding the animals were a big part of the symbiotic relationship between the animals and the herders. In the more recent past, people in agricultural societies owned dairy animals that they milked for domestic and local consumption, the animals might serve multiple purposes. In this case the animals were normally milked by hand and the size was quite small. These tasks were performed by a dairymaid or dairyman, the word dairy harkens back to Middle English dayerie, deyerie, from deye and further back to Old English dæge. With industrialisation and urbanisation, the supply of milk became an industry, with specialised breeds of cattle being developed for dairy
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Agriculture
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Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of human civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science, the history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology, genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries. Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts, the major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, oils, meats, fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo, other useful materials are also produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, field, Agriculture usually refers to human activities, although it is also observed in certain species of ant, termite and ambrosia beetle. To practice agriculture means to use resources to produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops. This definition includes arable farming or agronomy, and horticulture, all terms for the growing of plants, even then, it is acknowledged that there is a large amount of knowledge transfer and overlap between silviculture and agriculture. In traditional farming, the two are often combined even on small landholdings, leading to the term agroforestry, Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 15,000 years ago, rice was domesticated in China between 13,500 and 8,200 years ago, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. From around 11,500 years ago, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Cattle were domesticated from the aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 9,000 years ago. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 7,000 years ago, cotton was domesticated in Peru by 5,600 years ago, and was independently domesticated in Eurasia at an unknown time
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Baotou
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Baotou also known as Bugthot is the largest industrial city in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of northern China. The citys Mongolian name means place with deer, and a name is Lucheng, meaning Deer City. The 39,000 capacity Baotou Olympic Sports Centre Stadium is the sports venue in the city and is used mostly for football matches. Baotou is divided into 10 county-level divisions, including 7 districts,1 county and 2 banners, the area now known as Baotou was inhabited since ancient times by nomads, most notably the Mongols. Near the end of the Han Dynasty, Lü Bu, a particularly noteworthy warrior, was born in todays Jiuyuan District of Baotou, compared to the capital of Inner Mongolia, Hohhot, Baotous construction as a city came relatively late, being incorporated as a town in 1809. The citys site was chosen because it was in a region of the Yellow Rivers Great Bend. A railway from Beijing was constructed in 1923, and the city began spurring some industrial sites, a German-Chinese joint-venture in 1934 constructed the Baotou Airport and opened a weekly route connecting Baotou with Ningxia and Lanzhou. Qinghai and Gansu wool and hides were brought down the Yellow River by raft and boat from Lanzhou to Baotou, the river traffic was one-way only, however, as the fast current made sailing up the Yellow River impractical. To travel from Baotou back to Lanzhou or Yinchuan, one would use a cart, there were also caravan roads from Baotou to Ordos and the Alxa League. On September 19,1949, after the September 19 Rebellion, the Peoples Government was formed in February 1950. In the early Communist years Baotou served as an industrial centre, Baotou is located in the west of Inner Mongolia, located at the junction of two economic zones, the Bohai Economic Rim and the Upper Yellow River Natural Resources Enrichment Zone. Its administrative area borders Mongolia to the north, while the Yellow River, the Tumochuan Plateau, Hetao Plateau, and Yin Mountains cross the urban area and central part of the prefecture. Temperatures often fall below −15 °C in winter and rise above 30 °C in summer, the annual precipitation is approximately 300 millimetres, with more than half of it falling in July and August alone. Due to the aridity and elevation, temperature differences between day and night can be large, especially in spring, in 2002, there were 12 instances of dust storms. Baotou Xingsheng Economic & Technological Development Zone is a zone in Baotou. The mines in Bayan Obo are the greatest source of rare earth metals globally, in 2005, they accounted for 45% of the total production on earth. Ethnic groups in Baotou,2000 census, Baotou is a terminus for both the Baolan Railway and the Jingbao Railway, heading for Lanzhou in the west and Beijing in the east, respectively. The city is served by two railway stations, Baotou East Railway Station, and Baotou Railway Station
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Lanzhou
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Lanzhou is the capital and largest city of Gansu Province in Northwest China. The prefecture-level city, located on the banks of the Yellow River, is a key transportation hub. Historically, it has been a link on the Northern Silk Road. The city is also a center for industry and petrochemical industry. Lanzhou was previously ranked as one of the cities with the worst air quality in the world, due to industrial pollution, however, as of 2015 it was awarded Chinas climate progress title. Lanzhou is home to 3,616,163 inhabitants at the 2010 census and 2,177,130 in the area of 1,088 square kilometres. Originally in the territory of the Western Qiang peoples, Lanzhou became part of the territory of the State of Qin in the 6th century BC. In 81 BC, under the Han dynasty, it was taken from the Huns Huandi Chanyu and made the seat of Jincheng commandery, to protect the city, the Great Wall of China was extended as far as Yumen. Parts of the Great Wall still exist within the built-up area, after the fall of the Han dynasty, Lanzhou became the capital of a succession of tribal states. In the 4th century it was briefly the capital of the independent state of Liang, the Northern Wei dynasty reestablished Jincheng commandery, renaming the county Zicheng. Mixed with different cultural heritages, the area at present-day Gansu province, from the 5th to the 11th century, under the Sui Dynasty the city became the seat of Lanzhou prefecture for the first time, retaining this name under the Tang dynasty. In 763 the area was overrun by the Tibetan Empire and in 843 was conquered by the Tang, later it fell into the hands of the Western Xia dynasty and was subsequently absorbed by the Song dynasty in 1041. The name Lanzhou was reestablished, and the county renamed Lanzhuan, after 1127 it fell into the hands of the Jin dynasty, and after 1235 it came into the possession of the Mongol Empire. Under the Ming dynasty the prefecture was demoted to a county and placed under the administration of Lintao superior prefecture, the city acquired its current name in 1656, during the Qing dynasty. When Gansu was made a province in 1666, Lanzhou became its capital. In 1739 the seat of Lintao was transferred to Lanzhou, which was made a superior prefecture called Lanzhou. Lanzhou was badly damaged during the Dungan revolt in 1864–1875, in the 1920s and 1930s it became a center of Soviet influence in northwestern China. This highway remained the primary route of northwestern China until the completion of the railway from Lanzhou to Ürümqi
