Today I wanted to share 20 random facts about China with you.

1. China is the second largest country in the world by landmass
2. China’s full name is the People’s Republic of China which is sometimes shortened to PRC.
3. There are about 1.4 billion people living in China; 18% of the world’s population.
4. China has the world’s largest bullet train network.
5. China has the fastest growing economy in the world
6. China is losing 4000 square kilometers of land each year to desertification
7. The largest producer in the world of rice, wheat, tomatoes, aubergine, grapes, watermelon and spinach is China
8. China is the third most biodiverse country in the world (after Brazil and Colombia), with over 34,687 species of plants and animals.
9. China is the second largest country in the world by land mass, after Russia, and the third-largest by total area.
10. There are 658 billionaires in China — the highest number in the world.
11. China’s currency is called the “renminbi” or “RMB”, and it’s the eighth most traded currency in the world.
12. Mainland China is home to over 600,000 expats, most of them live in the Shenzhen area.
13. China is a major investor in scientific innovation and research, spending $279 billion on this in 2017.
14. The road network in China is the longest highway system in the world, at 142,500km (and they’re still building more of it)
15. Most people live within 1000 miles of the coast, with far inland areas such as Inner Mongolia being sparsely-populated farmland.
16. In 2010, there were 118.06 boys per 100 girls. Most countries have about 105 boys per 100 girls.
17. The main ethnic group in China are the Han-Chinese, who are the world’s largest single-ethnic group.
18. 70% of the population speak Mandarin, and although we think of Cantonese as a second language of China, only 80 million people speak it, amongst over 200 other living languages being spoken in China! Standard Mandarin is used as a bridging language between people in China who cannot speak the same dialect as one another, so many people speaking Standard Mandarin don’t have it as their native language, which means many people e.g. taxi drivers can’t actually read it.
19. China is committed to improving the education of its residents, and invests $250 billion annually in compulsory-level education.
20. China follows traditional Chinese medicine still in many hospitals but there are some more modern-thinking ones, called “western” hospitals.