Where is China?

Where is China? China is in the Eastern side of Asia. The Asian Continent is the largest and most populous of all continents.

How Big is China?

China Area: 9,596,960 square kilometers or 3,705,405 square miles.

China is the fourth largest country in the world, after Russia, Canada and the United States.

China's Geography and landscape are extremely varied. It is a large country, just slightly smaller than the United States, with a great variety of environments, peoples, flora and fauna, and traditions.

Along the coast concentrate the main cities and ports. In the North and West are mountains and deserts. The South is crowded with jungles and tropical lowlands whereas the South-West is home to the harsher Tibetan Plateau.

The majority of the people live in the milder coastal areas and along the rivers. These areas are booming modern economic and industrial zones which are in high contrast to the poorer areas as you travel inland.

More China Geography Facts

China's Border Countries and Seas

China's main Cities

Physical Map of China: China Mountains, Rivers, Deserts, Plateaus

Wildlife and Nature

What Borders China?

To the East along the coast it borders

Yellow Sea
East China Sea
South China Sea

Land neighbors include fourteen different countries, tying with Russia for the country with the most neighboring countries in the world.

These are China's fourteen bordering countries:

Russia	Mongolia	North Korea	Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan	Tajikistan	Afghanistan	Pakistan
India	Nepal	Bhutan	Burma
Laos	Vietnam

Russia's bordering countries are Azaerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, North Korea, Norway, Poland, and Ukraine. (Poland and Lithuania actually border the exclave of Kaliningrad which is geographically separated from the rest of Russia. If you only count Russia's "mainland", then China has the most neighbors. )

What are the Main Cities in China?

As China countinues to experience a tremendous growth in its urbanization rate, cities keep expanding and new ones keep emerging. As of the 2010 census, there were more than 120 cities with over a million residents included in their urban and "greater areas", some of them we have probably never even heard of! According to WorldAtlas, there are now 15 metro areas with over 10 million people.

Here are some of China's most prominent cities:

Beijing: Beijing is the Capital of the People's Republic of China and a political, cultural, and historical center of the nation. Beijing was home to the 2008 Summer Olympics when massive infrastructure investments went into the city and is now gearing to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. Beijing is also the gateway city to the Great Wall of China. 19.6 million people live in Beijing, making it one of the largest cities in China.

Shanghai: Shanghai is China's largest city with 25.6 million inhabitants. While Beijing is China's political center, Shanghai is its financial center. Shanghai also enjoys a good manufacturing and trading sector thanks to its position at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

Guangzhou: Guangzhou and its Greater Area was at the epicenter of China's economic reforms and was home of the first "special economic zones" that contributed to China's rapid development into a manufacturing centre. Over 40 million people live in the Guangzhou greater area which also includes the cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan. This area is what has been labeled the "world's factory", and where most products you see with the "made in China" label originate.

Hong Kong: Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China. Formerly a British colony, it reverted back to China in 1997 and has since then operated under the "one country, two systems" philosophy. Hong Kong is one of the world's leading international financial centers.

Chongqing: Unlike most other larger cities in China which are concentrated in the coastal area, Chongqing is located in the South West. It has become a key player in the development of the Western part of China, and its location upstream from the Yangtze River has contributed to make of this center a major manufacturing and transportation hub.