- published: 13 May 2016
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The Geology of China (中国地质, Zhōngguó dì zhì) (or the geological structure of the People's Republic of China) can be divided into several parts. The historical centre of Chinese culture is on the loess plateau, the world's largest Quaternary loess deposit, and on the alluvial lands at the east of it. The alluvial East China plain extends from just south of Beijing in the north, to the Yangzi river delta in the south, punctuated only by the igneous Shandong highlands and peninsula. South of the Yangzi river, most of the landscape is mountainous, dominated by sedimentary deposits and by the Yangzi craton. The most famous scenery in China is found in the karst landscapes of Guangxi and Yunnan provinces. The alluvial Sichuan basin is surrounded by mountains, the Qinling mountains to the north and the Himalaya to the west and southwest. Much of Northeast China, or Manchuria, is dominated by alluvial plains, but the border regions with Korea are also highly mountainous. In the west, most of the Tibetan plateau is in China, and averages over 4000 metres in elevation. The Yunnan-Guizhou plateau is also an extension of the Tibetan plateau.
China (i/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.