ACOG - People's Republic of China - IBM

Geography

Location: Eastern Asia, bordering the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea,and South China Sea, between North Korea and Vietnam

Area:
total area: 9,596,960 sq km
land area: 9,326,410 sq km
comparative area: slightly larger than the US

Land boundaries: total 22,143.34 km, Afghanistan 76 km, Bhutan 470 km, Burma 2,185 km,Hong Kong 30 km, India 3,380 km, Kazakhstan 1,533 km, North Korea 1,416 km, Kyrgyzstan 858 km, Laos 423 km, Macau 0.34 km, Mongolia 4,673 km, Nepal 1,236 km, Pakistan 523 km, Russia (northeast) 3,605 km, Russia (northwest) 40 km, Tajikistan 414 km, Vietnam 1,281 km

Coastline: 14,500 km


People

Population: 1,203,097,268 (July 1995 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 26% (female 151,266,866; male 167,234,782)
15-64 years: 67% (female 391,917,572; male 419,103,994)
65 years and over: 7% (female 39,591,692; male 33,982,362)

Population growth rate: 1.04% (1995 est.)

Birth rate: 17.78 births/1,000 population

Death rate: 7.36 deaths/1,000 population

Net migration rate: 0 migrant(s)/1,000 population

Infant mortality rate: 52.1 deaths/1,000 live births

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 68.08 years
male: 67.09 years
female: 69.18 years

Total fertility rate: 1.84 children born/woman

Ethnic divisions: Han Chinese 91.9%, Zhuang, Uygur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi, Korean, and other nationalities 8.1%

Religions: Daoism (Taoism), Buddhism, Muslim 2%-3%, Christian 1% (est.)

Languages: Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect),Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghainese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese),Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, minority languages (see Ethnic divisions entry)

Literacy: age 15 and over can read and write (1990)
total population: 78%
male: 87%
female: 68%


Government

Names:
conventional long form: People's Republic of China
conventional short form: China

Type: Communist state

Capital: Beijing

Independence: 221 BC (unification under the Qin or Ch'in Dynasty 221 BC; Qing orCh'ing Dynasty replaced by the Republic on 12 February 1912; People's Republic established 1 October 1949)

Constitution: most recent promulgated 4 December 1982


Economy

National product: GDP - purchasing power parity - $2.9788 trillion

National product real growth rate: 11.8%

National product per capita: $2,500

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 25.5%

Unemployment rate: 2.7% in urban areas

Electricity:
capacity: 162,000,000 kW
production: 746 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 593 kWh



Olympic Factoid
The volunteer staff of the 1996 Olympic Games totaled 50,152. They worked an estimated 850,000 shifts.