Han ChineseThe Han Chinese or Han people are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They are the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population. Han Chinese people comprise various subgroups speaking distinctive varieties of the Chinese languages. The estimated 1.4 billion Han Chinese people worldwide are primarily concentrated in the People's Republic of China (including Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau), where they make up about 92% of the total population.
Chinese folk religionChinese folk religion, also known as Chinese popular religion, comprehends a range of traditional religious practices of Han Chinese, including the Chinese diaspora. Vivienne Wee described it as "an empty bowl, which can variously be filled with the contents of institutionalised religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Chinese syncretic religions”. This includes the veneration of shen (spirits) and ancestors, exorcism of demonic forces, and a belief in the rational order of nature, balance in the universe and reality that can be influenced by human beings and their rulers, as well as spirits and deities.
YunnanYunnan (UKjuːˈnæn, USˌjuːˈnɑːn; ) is a landlocked province in southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Sichuan, autonomous regions of Guangxi, and Tibet as well as Southeast Asian countries: Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. Yunnan is China's fourth least developed province based on disposable income per capita in 2014.
BeijingBeijing (beɪˈdʒɪŋ ; ; AUDBeijing pronunciation.oggbei3.jing1), alternatively romanized as Peking (piːˈkɪŋ ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. With over 21 million residents, Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city as well as China's second largest city after Shanghai. It is located in Northern China, and is governed as a municipality under the direct administration of the State Council with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts.
Yellow RiverThe Yellow River is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in Earth at the estimated length of . Originating at an elevation above 15,000 feet (4,600 metres) in the Bayan Har Mountains, it empties into the Bohai Sea. The Yellow River's basin was the birthplace of several ancient civilizations. The yellow sediments were carried downstream from the Loess Plateau. There are frequent devastating floods and course changes produced by the continual elevation of the river bed, sometimes above the level of its surrounding farm fields.
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms periodThe Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period () was an era of political upheaval and division from 907 to 979. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen concurrent dynastic states, collectively known as the Ten Kingdoms, were established elsewhere, mainly in South China. It was a prolonged period of multiple political divisions in Chinese imperial history. Traditionally, the era is seen as beginning with the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907 and reaching its climax with the founding of the Song dynasty in 960.
ShaanxiShaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), Ningxia (NW) and Inner Mongolia (N). Shaanxi covers an area of over with about 37 million people, the 16th highest in China.
BambooBamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in the case of Dendrocalamus sinicus individual culms reaching a length of 46 meters, up to 36 centimeters in thickness and a weight of up to 450 kilograms. The internodes of bamboos can also be of great length. Kinabaluchloa wrayi has internodes up to 2.5 meters in length.
QinghaiQinghai tʃɪŋˈhaɪ, (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest province of China by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xining. Qinghai borders Gansu on the northeast, Xinjiang on the northwest, Sichuan on the southeast and the Tibet Autonomous Region on the southwest. Qinghai province was established in 1928 during the period of the Republic of China, and until 1949 was ruled by Chinese Muslim warlords known as the Ma clique.
Song dynastyThe Song dynasty (sʊŋ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song often came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasties in northern China. After retreating to southern China following attacks by the Jin dynasty, the Song was eventually conquered by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty.
Sino-Tibetan languagesSino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Sinitic languages. Other Sino-Tibetan languages with large numbers of speakers include Burmese (33 million) and the Tibetic languages (6 million). Other languages of the family are spoken in the Himalayas, the Southeast Asian Massif, and the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.
Mandarin ChineseMandarin (ˈmændərɪn; ) is a group of Sinitic dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of China. Because Mandarin originated in North China and most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is sometimes referred to as Northern Chinese (). Many varieties of Mandarin, such as those of the Southwest (including Sichuanese) and the Lower Yangtze, are not mutually intelligible with the standard language (or are only partially intelligible).
ShanxiShanxi (ʃænˈʃiː; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi and Datong. Its one-character abbreviation is "" (), after the state of Jin that existed there during the Spring and Autumn period. The name Shanxi means "West of the Mountains", a reference to the province's location west of the Taihang Mountains.
NanjingNanjing (naenˈdʒIN; , Mandarin pronunciation: AUDChinese-Nanjing.oggnan2.jing1), alternatively romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, and a megacity. The city has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400 .
