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.
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.
Inner MongoliaInner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a small section of China's border with Russia (Zabaykalsky Krai). Its capital is Hohhot; other major cities include Baotou, Chifeng, Tongliao, and Ordos. The autonomous region was established in 1947, incorporating the areas of the former Republic of China provinces of Suiyuan, Chahar, Rehe, Liaobei, and Xing'an, along with the northern parts of Gansu and Ningxia.
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.
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.
Chinese dragonThe Chinese dragon, also known as the loong, long or lung ( / 龙), is a legendary creature in Chinese mythology, Chinese folklore, and Chinese culture at large. Chinese dragons have many animal-like forms such as turtles and fish, but are most commonly depicted as snake-like with four legs. Academicians have identified four reliable theories on the origin of the Chinese dragon: snakes, Chinese alligators, thunder worship and nature worship. They traditionally symbolize potent and auspicious powers, particularly control over water.
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).
Great Wall of ChinaThe Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand li long wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic groups from the Eurasian Steppe. Several walls were built from as early as the 7th century BC, with selective stretches later joined by Qin Shi Huang (220–206 BC), the first emperor of China. Little of the Qin wall remains. Later on, many successive dynasties built and maintained multiple stretches of border walls.
TianjinTianjin (tjEn'dʒɪn; ; Mandarin: AUDzh-Tianjin.oggtian1.jin1), alternately romanized as Tientsin (ˈtjEn'tsɪn), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. As such, it is not part of a province of China. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants during the 2020 Chinese census.
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.
Hui peopleThe Hui people (, Xiao'erjing: خُوِزُو, Хуэйзў, Xuejzw) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the northwestern provinces and in the Zhongyuan region. According to the 2010 census, China is home to approximately 10.5 million Hui people. Outside China, the 110,000 Dungan people of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are also considered part of the Hui ethnicity. The Hui have a distinct connection with Islamic culture.
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.
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.
RenminbiThe renminbi (; symbol: ¥; ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China. It is the 5th most traded currency as of April 2022. The yuan ( or ) is the basic unit of the renminbi, but the word is also used to refer to the Chinese currency generally, especially in international contexts. One yuan is divided into 10 jiao (), and the jiao is further subdivided into 10 fen (). The renminbi is issued by the People's Bank of China, the monetary authority of China.
Second Sino-Japanese WarThe Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from 1937 to 1945, as part of World War II. In China, the war is called the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (). This total war between China and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia, although some scholars consider the European War and the Pacific War to be entirely separate, albeit concurrent.
Yellow EmperorThe Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi (ˈhwɑːŋ_ˈdiː), is either an individual deity (shen) in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and cultural heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, or a part of the Five Regions' Highest Deities (). Calculated by Jesuit missionaries, who based their work on various Chinese chronicles, and later accepted by the twentieth-century promoters of a universal calendar starting with the Yellow Emperor, Huangdi's traditional reign dates are 2697–2597 or 2698–2598 BC.
