China Geography

China geography reveals the fact that China is third biggest country of the world with an area of 9.6 million square meters and that is 6.6 percent of the world's total land area.

The physical geography of China shows that the land includes plateaus, plains, basins, foothills, and mountains. The terrain is mountainous with two thirds of the land covered by mountains, hills and plateaus. This helps understand the development of the Chinese civilization and later coming of the colonial powers through the sea route.

China geography in the east along the shores of the Yellow River and the East China Sea has alluvial plains, in the north of the edges of the Mongolian Plateau are grasslands, south is dominated by the hills and low mountain ranges and in the central east are the deltas of the Huang He and the Yangtze River. While most of the arable land of China lies along these rivers and they were the centers of the ancient civilization.

China geography also reveals that there is great number of rivers and the inland river system accounts for 36 percent of the landmass. The Yangtze River is the longest river and the third longest in the world ( 6,300 km). China also has got numerous lakes numbering to 2,800 natural lakes. The geography of China also shows that in the west , the north has a great alluvial plain and hills ranges and the Himalayas that contains the planets highest peak traverse the south. Besides the land area China also has neighboring seas and numerous islands.

The climate of China varies greatly. In the north summer daytime temperature rises to 30 degrees and winters similar to Arctic. The central zone has a temperate climate with hot summers and cold winters. The southern zone has a subtropical climate with hot summers and mild winters. China has rich flora and fauna as it lies in two of the worlds major zoogeographic regions, the Paleartic and the Oriental.

Chinese human geography shows that it has got a population that makes it the world's most populous country. The Chinese geography shows the vastness of the country and the bareness of the western hinterland has important implications for the defense planning. But historically the civilization has been oriented to inland region centered in the middle and the lower reaches of the Yellow River. Now with economic reforms the urban geography of China has vastly changed.