Introduction to China
China is the world's third largest country by area.
What is the population of China?
One in every five people in the world (1.4 billion) live in China. Until 2023 China was the most populated country on Earth. It's population is now slightly less than that of India.
In 2022, China produced more than half of the world's coal and generated nearly one third of the world's renewable energy. It is the world's largest manufacturer, producing 20% of the world's manufactured goods in 2022, worth over $2 trillion.
China has the third largest number of nuclear weapons, but this is less than 10% of Russia or the USA. The country's People's Liberation Army is the largest in the world, with more than two million men and women in active service. China has the second highest military spending in the world, after the USA.
China's capital city is Beijing, which is also the seat of government.
How is China changing?
China is a country which is changing fast. For centuries, the majority of people in China lived and work in the countryside.
In the 1980s, only 19.4 percent of people in China lived in cities. Economic growth and industrialisation resulted in rapid growth in urbanisation and by 2022 this has dramatically increased to 65.2 percent. (Source: Statistica)
According to World Population Review, China's largest city, Shanghai, had a population of 29,210,808 in 2023.
Many people left the countryside to find better paid work in new industries in the cities.
According to Statista, in 2020:
- around 23.6 percent of the workforce were employed in the agricultural sector
- 28.7 percent in the industrial sector
- 47.7 percent in the service sector (for the government, in shops, etc)
In 2020, the average income in the countryside was around £2,000 per year. In the cities income was around £5,000 per year.
A small number of Chinese people are rich or very rich and the number of wealthy is growing.
China has around 5.3 million millionaires – second only to the USA.
