China is officially atheist
China is usually left out of consultations of early civilization which is a mistake since it was one of the first. If you’re taking a visit to China, here is some background information your should know.
A top level view of China for Travelers
The official name of the country is the People’s Republic of China. China covers a land mass of over 3.7 million square miles, making it a huge country indeed. The capital is Beijing. Other major towns include Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Harbin, and Chengdu.
With such a big land area, you can image that there’s a large range of terrain in the country. Usually, one can find fields, deltas and hills in the east, while mountains, high plateaus and a huge desert exists in the west. The climate ranges from tropical in the far south to arctic cold in the far north on the border with Siberia, Russia.
The people of China are referred to as Chinese. The most recent population study put the total number of Chinese at over 1.3 bn. folk, more than 4 times as many folks as found in the US. Population growth , however , has decelerated to approximately half a percent annually. The reason for the slow down is very controversial. Concerned about commercial strain due to population expansion, China has implemented a policy of allowing for only one child per family with some minor exceptions. Enforcement of this policy is supposedly done thru fines, but forced terminations are known to happen notwithstanding presidency policy opposing them. The govt hopes to stabilize the population at not more than 1.6 billion people thru 2050. The existing infant mortality rate is a surprisingly high 25.5 per 1,000 births.
Ethnicity in China is a hodgepodge issue given its massive size and long history. Han Chinese is the dominant group, consisting of over 91 % of the populace. This is a very loose group as shown by various dialects of language in the country. There are seven major Chinese dialects and masses of localized dialects. Mandarin is the dominant dialect, spoken by over 70 % of the populace in one sort or another. That having been said, only sixty % of the Han Chinese can talk it with the remaining forty percent speaking other dialects. In addition to Mandarin, languages spoken widely included Turkic, Korean, Uygur, Tibetan and Mongolian. It is typically said that people in one part of China can’t communicate with folk on the other side.
From a religious perspective, China is officially non-believer. That said, it takes a lax view towards religions that work with the government. Buddhism is the biggest religion with over 100 million practitioners. Taoism is the second preferred. There’s a scattering of Muslim and Christian followers, but nothing major.
As this overview demonstrates, China is giant and unique. This makes it a great travel destination.
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