China
K'ai Yuan, 621-846 A.D.
Bronze Cash 24mm (3.39 grams)
Referfence: S-312-48, 366ff; Hartil.14.1-14.97
Kai Yuan tong bao.
Blank.
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item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime
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China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC),
is a
sovereign state
in
East Asia
. With a population of over
1.381 billion
, it is the world's
most populous state
.[15]
The state is governed by the
Communist Party of China
based in the
capital
of
Beijing
.
It exercises
jurisdiction
over 22
provinces
, five
autonomous regions
, four
direct-controlled municipalities
(Beijing,
Tianjin
,
Shanghai
, and
Chongqing
), two mostly self-governing
special administrative regions
(Hong
Kong and Macau
), and claims sovereignty over
Taiwan
. China is a
great power
and a major
regional power
within Asia, and has been
characterized as a
potential superpower
.[17][18]
Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world's
second largest state by land area
,[19]
and either the
third or fourth-largest by total area
,
depending on the method of measurement.][i
China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from
forest steppes
and the
Gobi
and
Taklamakan Deserts
in the arid north to
subtropical
forests in the wetter south. The
Himalaya
,
Karakoram
,
Pamir
and
Tian Shan
mountain ranges separate China from
South
and
Central Asia
. The
Yangtze
and
Yellow Rivers
, the third and sixth longest in
the world, respectively, run from the
Tibetan Plateau
to the densely populated
eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers
(9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the
Bohai
,
Yellow
,
East China
, and
South China
seas.
China is one of the
cradles of civilization
, with its known history
beginning with an ancient civilization – one of the world's earliest – that
flourished in the fertile basin of the
Yellow River
in the
North China Plain
. For millennia, China's
political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as
dynasties
. Since 221 BC,
when the
Qin Dynasty
first conquered several states to
form a Chinese empire, the state has expanded, fractured and reformed numerous
times. The
Republic of China
(ROC) replaced the
last dynasty
in 1912, and ruled the
Chinese mainland
until 1949, when it was
defeated by the Communist Party of China in the
Chinese Civil War
. The Communist Party
established the People's Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, while
the ROC government relocated to Taiwan with its present capital in
Taipei
. Both the ROC and PRC continue to claim
to be the legitimate government of all China.
China had the largest economy in the world for most of the past two thousand
years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline.[20][21]
Since the introduction of
economic reforms in 1978
, China has become one
of the world's
fastest-growing
major economies. As of 2014, it
is the world's second-largest economy by
nominal GDP
and largest by
purchasing power parity
(PPP). China is also
the world's largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods.[22]
China is a recognized
nuclear weapons state
and has the world's
largest standing army
and
second-largest defense budget
.[23][24]
The PRC is a member of the
United Nations
, as it replaced the ROC as a
permanent member
of the
U.N. Security Council
in 1971. China is also a
member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the
WTO
,
APEC
,
BRICS
, the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO), the
BCIM
and the
G-20
.
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