Economic life

Chinese economy experienced astonishing growth in the last few decades that catapulted the country to become the world's second largest economy.

Since the introduction of the economic reforms in 1978, China has become the world’s manufacturing hub, where the secondary sector represented the largest share of GDP. However, in recent years, China’s modernization propelled the tertiary sector and, in 2013, it became the largest category of GDP with a share of 46.1%, while the secondary sector still accounted for a sizeable 45.0% of the country’s total output.


Agriculture is a vital industry in China, employing over 300 million farmers. Chinaranks first in worldwide farm output, primarily producing rice, wheat, potatoes, tomato, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, cotton, oilseed and soybeans.


China is certainly a major net importer with an increasingly influential role in world markets but is also a sizeable minerals producer in its own right—as would be expected of a country of such immense landmass—and has a striking diversity of resources.



China's machinery manufacturing industry can provide complete sets of large advanced equipment, including large gas turbines, large pump storage groups, and nuclear power sets, ultra-high voltage direct-current transmission and transformer equipment, complete sets of large metallurgical, fertilizer and petro-chemical equipment, urban light rail transport equipment, and new papermaking and textile machinery. Machinery and transportation equipment have been the mainstay products of Chinese exports, as China's leading export sector for successive 11 years from 1996 to 2006.

China’s service sector is still small, in percentage terms, compared with those of Britain and the United States, where a vast array of services makes up almost 80 percent of the economy. But the sector has about doubled its share of the Chinese economy since 1980, according to the World Bank.“Manufacturing will remain a key pillar of the economy, but at the margin, future growth will come from the services industry.

China's economy is certainly on the rise even though it faces a number of challenges going forward including an overall slowdown in economic growth, long-term inflation, economic bubbles that have formed that the government must control before they burst, adjusting to the industry shift to the tertiary sector that's occuring and a resistance to reform which has been a staple of the dominant Communist Party.

Population Stats for China

Interesting facts and data about China


China has a population of around 1,367,485,388 (CIA Factbook, July 2015) and is the highest populated country in the world.

Chinese, by virtue of these numbers, is the most spoken language in the world, accounting for over 800 million speakers.




While in most countries females outnumber males, in China the sex ratio is 1.06 males/females




(CIA Factbook, 2015)

Here are some additional statistics:


Population growth rate: 0.45%

Birth rate: 12.49 births/1,000 population (2105 est.)

Death rate: 7.53 deaths/1,000 population (2015 est.)

Life expectancy at birth: - total population: 75.41 years

- male: 73.38 years

- female: 77.73 years

Total fertility rate: 1.6 children born/woman


China is part of what it is referred to as the BRIC countries: countries that are rapidly developing and are thought to be opportunities for investment. This chart is interesting because it shows the difference in literacy rate among China and other developing countries.





China is a relatively safe place to travel to, there are no reccomendations against travelling there even though Avian Influenza can be a concern. Tourists and visitors in general are advised to avoid contact with poultry and birds in general.

Thematic maps

A thematic map is a type of map or chart especially designed to show a particular theme connected with a specific geographic area. These maps can portray physical, social, political,cultural, economic, sociological, agricultural, or any other aspects of a city, state, region, nation,or continent.


Choropleth maps

A map that uses graded differences in shading or color or the placing of symbols inside defined areas on the map in order to indicate the average values of some property or quantity in those areas.



In this map, ethnolinguistic distribution of China is displayed


Isoline maps

An isoline map is a map with continuous lines joining points of the same value.



In this map, population density of China is displayed


Cartograms

A cartogram is a map in which some thematic mapping variable – such as travel time,population, or Gross National Product – is substituted for land area or distance The geometry or space of the map is distorted in order to convey the information of this alternate variable.





In this map, GNP(or GNI) per capita for China is displayed