Population: 1,238.3 million (30% urban, 70% rural)
Life expectancy: 71 (female); 67 (male)
Infant mortality: 27 per 1,000 births
Literacy rate: 62% (female); 84% (male)
Ethnic divisions: Han Chinese 93.3%; Zhuang, Uygur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi, Korean, and other nationalities 6.7%
Principal languages: Standard Chinese (Putonghua) or Mandarin (based on the Beijing dialect); also Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghainese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, and minority languages
Principal religions: officially atheist, but traditionally pragmatic and eclectic; most important elements of religion are Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism; Muslim 2-3%, Christian 1%
Rank of affluence among U.N. members: 149/183
China is the only nation that has endured more or less intact throughout recorded history. While empires rose and fell elsewhere, China held fast for almost 3,000 years, in part because its ruling dynasties considered China the center of the world and paid little attention to lands outside.
Kublai Khan was the first outsider to conquer China, in the 13th century, but a succession of dynasties left the existing culture intact until the mid 19th century, when China was again invaded, this time by technologically superior European forces. An opium war with Britain, civil unrest, a war with Japan, and finally the anti-outsider Boxer rebellion of 1900 set the stage for convulsive social changes that culminated in 1949 with the victory of communist rebels.
Led by Mao Zedong, the new government both forced China to modernize and curbed its high birthrate, although at a staggering human cost. (One failed program, the Great Leap Forward of the 1950s, is said to have killed more people than any single event this
