The People's Republic of
China (PRC) is the largest country by population in East Asia and the most populous in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population. It has twenty-two provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions. The capital of the PRC is Beijing.
At 9.6-million square kilometres, PRC is the world's third or fourth largest country by area. It has a diverse landscape; in the north, near the PRC's borders with Mongolia and Russia's Siberia, the Gobi Desert and forest steppes dominate the dry expanse while lush subtropical forests grow along its southern borders with Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. The terrain in the west is rugged and high altitude, with the Himalayas and the Tian Shan mountain ranges forming the PRC's natural borders with India and Central Asia. In contrast, the PRC's eastern seaboard is low-lying and has a 14,500-kilometre long coastline bounded on the southeast by the South China Sea and on the east by the East China Sea beyond which lies Korea and Japan.
China is one of the world's fastest growing economies in terms of nominal GDP growth, and is the fastest-growing major economy. It has the world's fourth largest GDP in nominal terms or second largest in purchasing power, and consumes as much as a third of the world's steel and over half of its concrete.
The PRC is the second largest country in Asia by area after Russia, and is considered the third largest in the world in respect to land and sea area. China borders 14 nations (counted clockwise from south): Vietnam, Laos, Burma, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and North Korea.
The population growth rate for 2006 is 0.59%. The PRC officially recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups, the largest of which are the Han Chinese, who constitute about 91.9% of the total population. Large ethnic minorities include the Zhuang (16 million), Manchu (10 million), Hui (9 million), Miao (8 million), Uyghur (7 million), Yi (7 million), Tujia (5.75 million), Mongols (5 million), Tibetans (5 million), Buyei (3 million), and Koreans (2 million).
Shanghai is the largest city in China in terms of population and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, with over 20 million people in its extended metropolitan area. Located on China's central eastern coast near the mouth of the Yangtze River, the city is administered as a municipality with province-level status.
Shanghai has a rich collection of buildings and structures of various architectural styles. The Bund, located by the bank of the Huangpu River, contains a rich collection of early 20th century architecture, ranging in style from neo-classical HSBC Building to the art deco Sassoon House. A number of areas in the former foreign concessions are also well preserved, and despite redevelopment, the old city still retains some buildings of a traditional style, including Yuyuan Garden, a traditional garden in the Jiangnan style.
In recent years, a large number of architecturally distinctive skyscrapers have sprung up throughout Shanghai. Notable examples of contemporary architecture include the Shanghai Museum and Shanghai Grand Theatre in the People's Square precinct.
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