7 Things You Might Not Have Known About China

Here are some interesting facts I've learned about China, which I wanted to share with you.

Chinese isn't Actually a Language

Chinese is actually comprised of numerous languages. The most popularly known are Mandarin, which is mostly spoken in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore and Cantonese, which is spoken in Hong Kong and Macau. There are also numerous other smaller languages and dialects spoken in China. Mandarin is the most spoken language by native speakers in the world with over 955 million speakers.

China has the Biggest GDP in the World

It's GDP is $23.2 trillion. China is first in GDP according to International Monetary Fund, World Bank and CIA World Factbook. European Union is second and the US third. CCP or China's Communist Party is China's ruling political party and is dedicated to the economic growth of China.

China is the Most Populous Country

China has 1,387 billion people. That is over 4 times more people than in the United States. This you might have already known. But did you also know, that China is urbanizing with rates never seen before. In the 1990s only 26% of the people lived in cities and now that number is over 56%. In fact China already has over a 100 cities with each of them having over a 1 million people.

Chinese People Love Movies

With the growth of China's economy and with more and more people wanting the luxury of modern entertainment, China is building movie theaters at amazing speed. The Chinese are building 27 new screens per day to keep up with the new demand. China is said to overtake the amount of screens in the US this year with over 40,000 movie screens. Generating revenue of $10 billion per year.

China is a Huge Country

China has the area equivalence of the United States of America. China's area is 9,596,961 km2 (3,705,407 sq mi). The area of the US is 9,833,520 km2 (3,796,742 sq mi). China is the third largest country by its area behind Canada and Russia.

Largest Sand Deserts and Biggest Snow Peak Mountains

The Gobi desert is 1,000,000 km2 (500,000 sq mi) which is larger than every single US state apart from Alaska. From a European perspective, it is larger than every single European country apart from Russia (which is the world's largest country). The temperature of the Gobi desert can go up to 45 °C (113 °F) in the summer. China also has huge mountain ranges. Gasherbrum I is 8,080 m (26,509 ft). In comparison the world's largest mountain, Mt. Everest, is 8,848 m (29,029 ft).

World's Longest Underwater Tunnel

China is proposing to build the Bohai Strait Tunnel. At the current time it takes 14 hours to drive from Dalian to Yantai. A total of 1,415 km (879 miles). This will be reduced to a 123 kilometres (76 mi) long tunnel of which 90 kilometres (56 mi) will be under water. The project is estimated to cost $32 billion. The current longest tunnel is the Seikan Tunnel in Japan, which has a 23.3 km (14.5 mi) portion under water. The building of Bohai Strait Tunnel will immensely help with traffic congestion and travel time, which is hoped to boost China's economy further.

I hope you found this article interesting. The point of this text was not to compare China and the US as rivals, but to show how China is growing from an export driven economy to a modern consumer driven economy like the US. Thank you for reading and have a great day!