The China guide
Everything you need to know about China, all in one place
China is a country that falls in three steps from the Tibetan Plateau to the coastal plain, with almost everyone living on the last of them. Learn the shape of it across thirty-one provinces, regions and municipalities, the facts that make daily life legible from Beijing to Chengdu, and the first hundred words of Mandarin or of the Cantonese spoken across the south.
China ยท Facts
Read it, then make it stick
Selected topic
Geography of China
The land falls in three great steps from the Tibetan Plateau to the eastern plains, where almost everyone lives. Two rivers organize the rest: the Yangtze splits north from south, and the Yellow River built the northern plain it keeps flooding.
China ยท Maps
Know the shape of the country
Three maps of China itself, drawn from the same files the rounds are played on. The provinces, regions and municipalities are the frame everything else sits in; the cities and the rivers that put most of them where they are go inside it.
Pick a map. It opens and plays right here.
China ยท Words
Take Mandarin Chinese with you
Lesson 1 of 10
Greetings and politeness
Hello, thanks, please: the ten openers everything else builds on.
Explore more country maps
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of China, every country here has maps of its own.