1.
China
–
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
2.
Zhejiang
–
Zhejiang, formerly romanized as Chekiang, is an eastern coastal province of China. The provinces name derives from the Zhe River, the name of the Qiantang River which flows past Hangzhou. Kuahuqiao culture was a neolithic culture that flourished in Hangzhou area in 6. Zhejiang was the site of the Neolithic cultures of the Hemudu, the area of modern Zhejiang was outside the major sphere of influence of the Shang civilization during the second millennium BC. Instead, this area was populated by peoples known as Dongyue. The kingdom of Yue began to appear in the chronicles and records written during the Spring, according to the chronicles, the kingdom of Yue was in northern Zhejiang. Shiji claims that its leaders were descended from the Shang founder Yu the Great, the Song of the Yue Boatman was transliterated into Chinese and recorded by authors in north China or inland China of Hebei and Henan around 528 BC. The song shows that the Yue people spoke a language that was mutually unintelligible with the dialects spoken in north, the Sword of Goujian bears bird-worm seal script. Yuenü was a swordswoman from the state of Yue, to check the growth of the kingdom of Wu, Chu pursued a policy of strengthening Yue. Under King Goujian, Yue recovered from its early reverses and fully annexed the lands of its rival in 473 BC, the Yue kings then moved their capital center from their original home around Mount Kuaiji in present-day Shaoxing to the former Wu capital at present-day Suzhou. With no southern power to turn against Yue, Chu opposed it directly and, in 333 BC, yues former lands were annexed by the Qin Empire in 222 BC and organized into a commandery named for Kuaiji in Zhejiang but initially headquartered in Wu in Jiangsu. Kuaiji Commandery was the power base for Xiang Liang and Xiang Yus rebellion against the Qin Empire which initially succeeded in restoring the kingdom of Chu. At the beginning of the Three Kingdoms era, Zhejiang was home to the warlords Yan Baihu and Wang Lang prior to their defeat by Sun Ce and Sun Quan, who eventually established the Kingdom of Wu. Despite the removal of their court from Kuaiji to Jianye, they continued development of the region, industrial kilns were established and trade reached as far as Manchuria and Funan. Zhejiang was part of the Wu during the Three Kingdoms, Wu, commonly known as Eastern Wu or Sun Wu, had been the economically most developed state among the Three Kingdoms. The historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms records that Zhejiang had the best-equipped, the story depicts how the states of Wei and Shu, lack of material resources, avoided direct confrontation with the Wu. In armed military conflicts with Wu, the two states relied intensively on tactics of camouflage and deception to steal Wus military resources including arrows and bows, the other two centers in the south were Jiankang and Chengdu. In 589, Qiantang was raised in status and renamed Hangzhou, some may have lost social privilege, and took refugee in areas south to Yangtze River
3.
Wenzhou
–
Wenzhou is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province in the Peoples Republic of China. Wenzhou is located at the south east of Zhejiang Province with its borders connecting to Lishui on the west, Taizhou on the north. It is surrounded by mountains, the East China Sea, and 436 islands, while its lowlands are almost entirely along its East China Sea coast, most of Wenzhous area is mountainous as almost 76 percent of its 11, 784-square-kilometre surface area is classified as mountains and hills. It is said that Wenzhou has 7/10 mountains, 1/10 water, Wenzhou, which translates to a mild and pleasant land, derives its name from its climate, as it is neither extremely hot in summer nor extremely cold in the winter. Originally known as Yongjia, Yung-chia or Yungkia, Wenzhou was a prosperous treaty port. Wenzhou people make up a number of ethnic Chinese residents of Italy, France. Wenzhou has a history which goes back to about 2500 BC, when it became known for its production as one of the cities of origin of celadon in ancient China. Around 760AD in Tang Dynasty, the founding emperor Emperor Gaozu of Tang named Yongkia by its current name Wenzhou because of its mild weather, throughout its history, Wenzhous traditional economic role has been as a port giving access to the mountainous interior of southern Zhejiang Province. In early European sources, the name Wenzhou-Fu or -Foo was often transcribed Ouen-tcheou-fou after the accounts of French-speaking missionaries, in 1876, Wenzhou was opened for tea exports, but no foreign settlement was ever established there. Between 1937 and 1942, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Wenzhou achieved importance as one of the few ports still under Chinese control and it declined in the later years of the war, but began to recover after coastal trade along the Zhejiang coast was re-established in 1955. When Guo Pu climbed to the top of West Guo Mountain in Wenzhou, he saw the range of mountains of Wenzhou together shaped as dipper and the city itself aside from mountains shaped as key. Therefore, Wenzhou is now nicknamed as the dipper city based on the popular geographical saying of the city mountains as dipper. Legends have it that during the time when Wenzhou was being established and developed, today, the Deer City District is the name of downtown Wenzhou and White Deer theater located at downtown is the most popular theater among the locals. Wenzhou is the city in China designed by the founder of Fengshui philosophical system Guo Pu. Nowadays, the local Wenzhounese people usually see Guo Pu as the architect, in 2003, the local Wenzhou government built and put up a statue of Guo Pu in downtown Wenzhou. Being the only city in China and the world designed by the pioneer of Fengshui, Wenzhou is usually considered as the city in China with the best Feng Shui condition. Other cities in China that are considered to possess excellent Fengshui nature are Beijing, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Kunming, Hengyang. However, none of these cities is designed entirely on the basis of philosophy of Fengshui or designed by the father of Fengshui Guo Pu, moreover, Wenzhou has an enormous cultural impact and influence on the history of China
4.
Yandang Mountains
–
The mountain range is divided in two by the Oujiang River, the two parts being the North Yandang and South Yandang. More narrowly, Yandangshan is also used more narrowly to refer to Mount Yandang, the highest peaks of North Yandang are located here, and this is also the main tourist spot. In this article, name Yandang Mountains is used to refer the mountain range, the main peak of North Yandang, Baigangjian, rises 1,150 m above sea level There is a radar station on the peak, which is closed to the public. In 2004, Yandangshan became National Geological Park and in the beginning of 2005, the Yandangshan National Forest Park has an area of 841 hectares, covering Mt. Yandang. The area also hosts numerous temples and shrines, many of them with a long history, characteristic for the temples is that many of them are built inside caves or in mouths of caves. Yandang Mountains were formed through volcanic activity during the Cretaceous period c. Similar igneous rocks are widespread in SE China, forming a ~400 km wide and ~2,000 km long belt of volcanic-intrusive complexes. Yandangshan caldera is a round volcanic‐intrusive complex with a diameter of 13 square kilometers, Yandangshan volcano erupted in four episodes. The mountain consists of igneous rocks, ignimbrite, rhyolite, syenite. Mt. Yandang is mostly covered by deciduous and evergreen forests, drier ridges can be dominated by small pine trees. There are also some bamboo grooves, lower slopes and valleys are used for agricultural purposes, for example for growing tea, or as fruit gardens. Herbs and mushrooms collected from the mountain are sold locally, a number of plant and animal species have been named after Mt. Yandang. A species of sedge, Carex yandangshanica, has been described from Mt. Yandang, Mt. Yandang has also given its name to Cyclosorus yandangensis, a marsh fern, and Arachniodes yandangshanensis, a holly fern. Among animal species, a mite Eustigmaeus yandangensis has been named after Mt. Yandang, whatever wildlife survives tends to be very elusive. Notable inhabitants of Yandang Mountains include Cabots tragopan, a species in China. Chinese pangolin is also reported to live in Yandang Mountains, Yandang Mountains are dotted with temples and shrines, many of them with long history. Most of them were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but many have been rebuilt, Guanyin Temple is a Buddhist temple located on Mt. Yandang, in the Lingfeng Peaks scenic area. The temple lies between two rock peaks leaning against each other such that a big crack-like cave is formed, the peaks are known as the Holding Palms Peak. The cave is 100 metres high, with the cave bottom sloping steeply up, the temple follows this natural structure and has nine levels, with the Guanyin shrine occupying the highest, most hidden section of the cave
5.
Fuyang District
–
Fuyang is a district under the jurisdiction of Hangzhou, the provincial capital of Zhejiang. Fuyang is located in the northwest of Zhejiang on the Fuchun River, the city is the birthplace of numerous notable individuals, including modern Chinese short story writer and poet Yu Dafu. As of 2002, it has a population of approximately 680,000 of whom some 135,000 come from other cities, the total area of Fuyang is 1,808 square kilometres. Fuyang was founded during the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, the settlements first name was Fuchun with the name of Fuyang used from 394 AD onwards. Recent research has shown that the Ming dynasty Hongwu Emperor fled through Fuyang from Yuan dynasty forces during the years of that dynasty. Evidence of the pursuit has been found on the Tianzhong and Anding Mountains as well as in Yushan Village, in the final assault, General Jiang Yili and French commander Paul dAiguebelle destroyed part of the walls and took the city by storm, before sacking it. In the early 20th century Fuyang was a hub for paper, Chinese Guomindang forces fought numerous battles against the Imperial Japanese Army in Fuyang and Xindeng, then a separate administrative area, during the World War II Japanese occupation of China. In December 1937 neighboring Hangzhou fell to the Japanese army and in January 1939 Japanese and Chinese forces fought for control of Fuyang, in 1942 Japanese forces clashed with Chinese Guomindang troops for control of Xindeng during a Japanese offensive against Jinhua, the then capital of Zhejiang province. The United States Army Air Forces bombed Japanese positions in Fuyang in August 1943, in early August 1945, Japanese troops launched an offensive from Fuyang and captured the neighboring centers of Tonglu, Xindeng, and Linan City. Chairman Mao visited Fuyang in 1954 followed by Zhou Enlai in 1989, in 2011, a serious storm caused damage to many buildings in Fuyang. On the 23 June,457 farmhouses collapsed through storm damage, the seriousness of the catastrophe surpassed that of a 2009 typhoon in which 380 farmhouses suffered damage. The reconstruction cost the government a significant amount, Fuyang has a total area of 1,831.22 km2 and is located at 30°3′N 119°57′E. The city extends 68.67 kilometres E‑W and 50.37 kilometres N‑S, the area has many low mountains, hills, valleys, hills, basins, plains and other types of landscape. The low hilly area covers 1,385 square kilometres of the area, while the plains account for 18. 7%. Located in northwestern Zhejiang province, in 1994 Fuyang was administratively merged into Hangzhou, the city has several highways including the G320 national road, Hangxijing, as well as highways 05,23,19 and 14. Fuyang is 51 kilometres from Hangzhou and convenient transport makes it possible to reach Hangzhou Train Station, in 2012,45 natural disasters occurred in Fuyang, the majority not serious, although eight people died in October. To the southeast of the city, mountains cover an area of 309.1 square kilometres. The elevation in this area exceeds 500 metres while the height is more than 400 metres
6.
Ningbo
–
Ningbo, formerly written Ningpo, is a sub-provincial city in northeast Zhejiang province in China. It comprises the districts of Ningbo proper, three satellite cities, and a number of rural counties including islands in Hangzhou Bay and the East China Sea. Its port, spread across locations, is among the busiest in the world. As of the 2010 census, the entire administrated area had a population of 7.6 million, with 3.5 million in the six urban districts of Ningbo proper. To the north, Hangzhou Bay separates Ningbo from Shanghai, to the east lies Zhoushan in the East China Sea, on the west and south, Ningbo borders Shaoxing, the first character in the citys name ning means serene, while its second character bo translates to waves. The city is abbreviated Yǒng, after the Yong Hill, a prominent coastal hill near the city, the character ming was composed by two parts, representing two lakes inside the city wall, Sun Lake and Moon Lake. As a city with giant port, culture of Ningbo influences many countries near it, Ningbo is one of Chinas oldest cities, with a history dating to the Hemudu culture in 4800 BC. Since the Tang dynasty Ningbo was an important commercial port, arab traders lived in Ningbo during the Song dynasty when it was known as Mingzhou, as the ocean-going trade passages took precedence over land trade during this time. Another name for Mingzhou/Ningbo was Siming and it was a well known center of ocean-going commerce with the foreign world. These merchants did not intermingle with native Chinese, practicing their own customs and religion and they did not try to proselytize Islam to Chinese. Jews also lived in Ningbo, as evidenced by the fact that, after a flood destroyed Torah scrolls in Kaifeng. The city of Ningbo was known in Europe for a time under the name of Liampó. This is the spelling used e. g. in the standard Portuguese history, João de Barross Décadas da Ásia. The spelling Liampó is also attested in the Peregrination by Fernão Mendes Pinto, for the mid-16th-century Portuguese, the nearby promontory, which they called the cape of Liampó, after the nearby illustrious city was the easternmost known point of the mainland Asia. The Portuguese began trading in Ningbo around 1522, by 1542, the Portuguese had a sizable community in Ningbo. Portuguese activities from their Ningbo base included pillaging and attacking multiple Chinese port cities around Ningbo for plunder and they also enslaved people during their raids. The Portuguese were ousted from the Ningbo area in 1548, Ningbo was one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing at the end of the First Opium War between Britain and China. During the war, British forces took possession of the city of Ningbo briefly after storming the fortified town of Zhenhai at the mouth of the Yong River on October 10,1841
7.
Pinyin
–
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
8.
Hangzhou
–
Hangzhou, formerly romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang Province in east China. It sits at the head of Hangzhou Bay, which separates Shanghai, the citys West Lake is its best-known attraction. Hangzhou is classified as a city and forms the core of the Hangzhou metropolitan area. During the 2010 Chinese census, the area held 21.102 million people over an area of 34,585 km2. Hangzhou prefecture had a population of 9,018,000 in 2015. In September 2015, Hangzhou was awarded the 2022 Asian Games and it will be the third Chinese city to play host to the Asian Games after Beijing 1990 and Guangzhou 2010. Hangzhou, a technology hub and home to the e-commerce giant Alibaba. The celebrated neolithic culture of Hemudu is known to have inhabited Yuyao,100 km south-east of Hangzhou and it was during this time that rice was first cultivated in southeast China. Excavations have established that the jade-carving Liangzhu culture inhabited the area immediately around the present city around five years ago. The first of Hangzhous present neighborhoods to appear in records was Yuhang. Hangzhou was made the seat of the zhou of Hang in AD589, by a longstanding convention also seen in other cities like Guangzhou and Fuzhou, the city took on the name of the area it administered and became known as Hangzhou. Hangzhou was at the end of Chinas Grand Canal which extends to Beijing. The canal evolved over centuries but reached its full length by 609, in the Tang dynasty, Bai Juyi was appointed governor of Hangzhou. Already an accomplished and famous poet, his deeds at Hangzhou have led to his being praised as a great governor. He ordered the construction of a stronger and taller dyke, with a dam to control the flow of water, thus providing water for irrigation, the livelihood of local people of Hangzhou improved over the following years. Bai Juyi used his time to enjoy the beauty of West Lake. He also ordered the construction of a causeway connecting Broken Bridge with Solitary Hill to allow walking and he then had willows and other trees planted along the dyke, making it a beautiful landmark. This causeway was later named Bai Causeway, in his honor and it is listed as one of the Seven Ancient Capitals of China
.jpg)
