50 Amazing Facts About China (Part 1) | Amazing Facts 4U
- China holds the record for having the largest population in the world, with the Chinese making up an amazing one-fifth of the world’s population at 1.35 billion.
- The total area of China is about 9.6 million square km, occupying almost one-fourth of the land of our planet amazingly equivalent to the area of entire Europe.
- The amazing fact is that Chinese people use just around 200 family names in spite of the huge population.
- “Wang” is the most common surname shared by about 130 million Chinese (or 10% of the population).
- Fact is China has a border with 14 countries: Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.
- The modern word “China” most likely derives from the name of the Qin (pronounced “chin”) dynasty. First Emperor Qin Shi Huang (260-210 B.C.) of the Qin dynasty first unified China in 221 B.C., beginning an Imperial period which would last until A.D. 1912.
- The oldest tree in the world is China’s gingko, which first appeared during the Jurassic Age some 160 million years ago.
- It’s amazing that the Chinese grew rice as long as 5000 BC. Archaeologists have found rice grains in farming tools and pots from that period.
- The Chinese have made silk since at least 3,000 B.C. The Chinese fiercely guarded the secrets of silk-making, and amazingly anyone caught smuggling silkworm eggs or cocoons outside of China was put to death.
- The Chinese year is based on the cycles of the moon. This is called a lunar schedule. A complete cycle of the Chinese calendar takes 60 years.
- The Chinese calendar dates back to 2600 B.C. It is the oldest known calendar.
- Chinese years are represented by twelve animals in a calendar, each month by one distinct animal. They believe that the animal which represents a month when you were born predicts your characteristics in real life.
- The amazing fact is that there are 40,000 plus characters in the Chinese language which are basically logograms. Chinese students have to learn around 5,000 Chinese characters at a minimum by the time they leave school. College graduates learn as many as 10,000. You need to know 1000 to 2,000 Chinese characters to be able to read a Chinese newspaper.
- Chinese learn each of the characters of their language by recognizing and memorizing its shape. Amazingly you can never pronounce a Chinese word letter by letter, unlike English languages.
- The ice cream was invented in China around 2000 BC when the Chinese packed a soft milk and rice mixture in the snow. Marco Polo is rumored to have taken the recipe along with the recipe for noodles back with him to Europe.
- The Great Wall of China was built amazingly over about 2000 years by several emperors, starting in BC 475, to protect the people from their enemies. The Wall is considered one of the seven wonders of the world.
- The Great Wall of China snakes through the mountains of China for 4,500 miles. The Great Wall is 25 feet tall and 15-30 feet wide. Records show that more than 300,000 soldiers and 500,000 commoners worked to build it. In fact, rice flour was used to strengthen some bricks that make up the Great Wall of China.
- By the fourth century B.C., the Chinese were drilling for natural gas and using it as a heat source, preceding Western natural gas drilling by about 2,300 years.
- The world’s oldest surviving book is Chinese, a Buddhist text called the Diamond Sutra, which bears the date 868 AD. The book was discovered in 1907 in a walled-up cave in Dunhuang (north-west China) and is on display at the British Library.
- The Chinese invented eyeglasses over 1,000 years ago. By the time Marco Polo arrived in China around 1270, eyeglasses were widely used in the Chinese upper class.
- The Chinese invented the hot air balloon during the Three Kingdoms era (220-80 AD). The unmanned balloons known as Kongming lanterns were airborne lanterns that were used for military signaling.
- Suspension bridges were invented in China in 25 B.C., 1800 years before such bridges were known in the West.
- The Chinese were the first to invent the waterwheel to harness water in A.D. 31, 1200 years before the Europeans. China was also the first country in the world to use an iron plow. Europe didn’t begin using the iron plow until the 17th century.
- Around 300 A.D., during the Qin Dynasty in China, government officials would use fingerprint analysis at a crime scene to help identify potential perpetrators, as they knew that no two people have identical fingerprints.
- The mechanical clock was a Chinese invention, although the earliest model was an enormous 30 feet high. Su Song built the first mechanical clock between A.D 1088 and 1092. It could tell the time of the day and accurate horoscopes could be determined.
- The Chinese invented paper, the compass, gunpowder, and the science of printing.
- Toilet paper was invented in China in the late 1300s. Amazingly it was meant for emperors only.
- It was customary for wealthy men and women in the late empire to grow the nails of their little fingers extremely long as a sign of their rank. They often wore decorative gold and silver nail guards to protect their nails
- Tickling was a form of torture used in ancient China on nobility as other methods were not permitted. This method left no mark and recovery was quick.
- Forbidden City in Beijing is the world’s biggest ancient palace. It has the largest collection of ancient wooden structures in the world. It also has a million heritage articles. Amazingly forbidden city is spread over 180 acres and has 9,999 rooms and 980 buildings. It was completed from 1406 to 1420 A.D.
- The Chinese did not have a word for the sport until the early nineteenth century. Amazingly there were no stadiums built.
- Pencils are yellow because, in the 1890′s, the world’s best pencil graphite came from China. In China, the color yellow is associated with royalty, so American pencil manufacturers started painting their pencils yellow to indicate they contained high-quality Chinese graphite.
- The bicycle was introduced into China around 1891 by two American travelers named Allen and Sachtleben. The bicycle is now the primary transportation for millions of Chinese.
- The amazing fact is that during WWII, Japan bombed China with fleas infected with bubonic plague.
- After Mao grabbed power in China, there were so many suicides in Shanghai that people were amazingly afraid to walk near skyscrapers for the fear that anyone might land on them.
- Two ancient cities in China were drowned in 1959 by a man-made lake and were forgotten about until they were discovered in 2001 by a tourist diving company. The cities remain intact and in good condition.
- The amazing fact is that 100 million people in China live on less than the US $1 per day while 500 million people in China live on less than the US $2 per day.
- Amazingly in China, the number of people living in caves is greater than the population of Australia. At least 35 million people in China live in cave homes, called yardangs because they are warm in the winter and cool in the summer and for some people more desirable than concrete homes in the city.
- There are currently 32 million more boys than girls in China due to the one-child policy.
- It’s amazing that sunrise in the city of Kashgar/Zhongguo (in Western China) officially occurs as late as 10:17 am because the country joined its five time zones into a single one on Beijing time.
- The Three Gorges Hydroelectric Dam spans the Yangtze River and is the largest dam in the world. The amazing fact is that it is five times larger and generates 20 times more power than the Hoover Dam.
- China’s Grand Canal is the world’s oldest and longest canal at 1,114 miles (1,795 km) long with 24 locks and around 60 bridges.
- Red is considered a lucky color in China. At one-time wedding dresses were red. New Year’s banners, clothing, and lucky money envelopes are still red.
- The number 4 is the unluckiest Chinese number because it sounds like the word for “death”. Amazingly many buildings in China don’t have the 4th floor; some skip any floors with the number, such as 14, 24, 34, and all 40–49 floors.
- The number 8 is the luckiest Chinese number because it sounds like the word for “wealth”. 88 is considered particularly lucky because it symbolized the “double happiness” characters.
- Considering the eight as a lucky number the government scheduled the 2008 Olympics to begin on 8/8/08 at 8:08:08 PM.
- The abacus is an ancient counting machine. It is used in schools, to learn math. Many shopkeepers still use it for calculations. It can make very complex calculations.
- “Have you eaten yet?” is a typical Chinese greeting, akin to “How are you doing?”.
- If your main entrance is faced to the south, then the Chinese think that it should bring good luck to you.
- The amazing fact is that there’s a bridge between mainland China and Macau, where cars switch from left to right-hand drive and vice versa.
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