China
China, officially the People's Republic of China, is a country in East Asia. China, with an estimated population of 1,364,038,000 (2014), is the country with the largest population in the entire world. Its landmass is the third largest of the world. Russia is the largest, followed by Canada. The official language in China is Mandarin and the monetary unit is the renminbi, which is often called yuan (which is a unit of the currency). The current president of the country is Xi Jinping, and Li Keqiang is the Premier.
Despite being the birthplace of the religio-philosophical schools of Daoism and Confucianism, China has no official religion and became officially atheist in 1949.[1]
China on the globe
China owes its name to the Qin dynasty (221-207 bc). Before that time, China had been feuda,l and had consisted of seven different states. The first Qin emperor, Shih Huangdi (221-210 bc), managed to conquer and unify the states which ended China's Feudalism, and introduced the first Chinese central government. It was also Huangdi who started the construction of the world-famous Great Wall of China by connecting the former states' walls. Huangdi's tomb was discovered in the 1970s. There, the legendary Terracotta Army was revealed.
China today is highly characterized by Mao Zedong, the former leader of the Communists party (founded 1921 in Shanghai). In the 1920s and 30s, a bloody civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists took place which was only interrupted by the Japanese, who occupied Manchuria in 1931, and tried to press onwards. This led to the second Sino-Japanese war in 1937, and simply continued during the Second World War. When the Japanese evacuated Chinese territory after WWII, the tensions between the Nationalists and Communists re-ignited. This led to a resumption of the civil war. The Nationalists were steadily losing between 1948 and 49, and eventually took refuge in Taiwan in 1950. In October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China, and became its first leader.[2]
The Color of Terracotta Warriors
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/The_Color_of_Terracotta_Warriors.jpg
[1] "China." Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/place/China
[2] "China." Worldmark Encyclopedia of Nations. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/China.aspx