More than 1.2 billion people live
in China, making it the world's most populated nation. China is
about the same size as the United States, but is more than four
times as crowded. Seventy percent of China's people live on farms
or in small villages. If you draw a line across China west from
Shanghai, you can get an idea of how China's diverse climates affect
where people live.
The vast majority of China's people
live south of Shanghai. In this part of China, people rather than
machines do most of the work. Rice is the dominant crop, and rice
farming requires more labor than other crops. Farmers have learned
to use every bit of land possible to feed the large population.
The warm climate of southern China allows farmers to have two and
sometimes three harvests. Farmers have learned to use every bit
of land possible. Hills are often ringed with terraces in order
to create more farmland.
Wheat is the most common crops of
northeast China. The land is similar to what you might find in Kansas
in the United States, but is much more crowded. Where one family
might live on a farm, in northeast China you will find an entire
village of several hundred people. North China's severe winters
limit the growing season to about half the year.
Western China is less populated than
Eastern China. West of the wheat fields is the Gobi Desert. Very
few people live on this barren, rocky land. Many people who live
in this part of China are nomads who raise cattle, sheep and goats.
Many continue to live in felt tents called yerts, while others live
in simple clay homes. The Himalayas begin their rise south of the
Gobi.
There is very little meat in the
Chinese diet because there is no room for grazing animals. More
than ninety percent of China's arable land is used for growing food;
in the United States more land is used to raise animals than is
put into crops. Farmers cannot afford to allow any farmland to go
to waste. China manages to feed about twenty-three percent of the
world's population from about seven percent of the world's arable
land.
China has many large cities, but
the Chinese people cannot change their residence without permission
from the government. China's largest city is Shanghai, a port on
the Pacific Ocean, with more than twelve million people. More than
four million people live in the capital city of Beijing. Despite
government control, China's urban population is about the same size
as the entire population of the United States.
Village
life
