China is next to Japan and has a close relationship with Japan since ancient times. The range of successive dynasties has changed each time, but this time we will focus on the current range of the People's Republic of China.
Let's take a look at the geographical characteristics of China
One of the geographical features of China is that it has a diverse terrain such as basins, plateaus, lands, hills and deserts. Most of them are high-altitude areas such as mountains and hills, which occupy 70% of the national land.
What are the main mountain ranges in China?
In China, there are many mountain ranges as there are only about 70% of high altitude areas. Especially famous is the Himalayas And Karakorum Mountains .. In some cases, the broad definition of the Himalayas may include the Karakorum Mountains.
- Himalayas:Everest (8848m), the highest peak in the world
- Karakorum Mountains:K2 (8611m), the second highest altitude in the world
So, you can see that it has the most steep terrain in the world. Looking at the line connecting China from the Himalayas to the southern part of the North China Plain in cross section,
In this way, it has a stepped terrain with high west and low east. This terrain is directly linked to the quality of food production and affects the distribution of the population.
At high altitudes, it is cold and it is difficult for plants to grow, so food production is not very possible. It is especially noticeable in the southwestern part of China because of the Himalayas. For that reason, the population in China is west
When talking about the geography of China, we must not forget Huanghe . And Changjiang Two big rivers. The north is called the Yellow River and the south is called the Yangtze River.
The existence of these two rivers is indispensable for learning history. Both are large rivers that flow from the highlands of the Tibetan Plateau.
When studying world history, the first thing to learn is the birth of civilization. At this time, the Yellow River and the Yangtze River will surely come out.
Civilization has prospered in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River since ancient times. If you look at the map of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, you can see that there are the Loess Plateau and the North China Plain. The North China Plain has long been a plain centered on a region called the Zhongyuan, and it is no exaggeration to say that successive dynasties of China aimed at the Zhongyuan, making it a historically important land.
In geographic terms
As a result, both flat areas are widespread. The Loess Plateau is now becoming desertified due to the wars, deforestation, clearing, and grazing that have occurred in the past, but it was originally a land rich in nature.
It is said that the decisive path to desertification came when a large amount of wood was cut to burn the bricks used to build the Great Wall of China. The loess plateau, which is currently in the progressive tense, is also the main source of the loess plateau (as you can see from the climate map described later, the area around the loess plateau coincides with the arid zone).
The North China Plain, which extends to one of the lower reaches, is the second largest plain in China after the Northeast China Plain. The size is 4/5 of his area in Japan (=310,000㎢, Japan is about 378,000㎢). As expected, the continent is large in scale.
The North China Plain is a very important land in China from ancient times to the present because it is a flat and warm land with a large river flowing through it, while the northeastern plain is mainly a cold wasteland.
The Yangtze River is a large river with a total length of 6300 km that originates from the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai Province. Also known as the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River civilization around the Yangtze River is also in the middle and lower reaches, and civilization is also occurring around the Sichuan Basin between the Yangtze River and the Yellow River.
In the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, there is the third widest plain in China called the Yangtze River Yangtze Plain, which is easy to farm. It is also the most populous area, located east of the Three Gorges in Sakai, Sichuan and Hubei provinces.
Speaking of the three gorges, it is a famous place for dams. It was the Three Gorges Dam that was really noisy when it broke in 2020 (after all, it did not break, but it caused a widespread flood). The capital of Hubei Province is Wuhan City. This is also a region that has become a hot topic as a new corona outbreak in 2020.
These two rivers are closely related to the history of China, and from ancient times the Yangtze River was described as "Jiang" and the Yellow River was described as "River". "Jiangsu", "Jiangxi", "Zhejiang", etc. are located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the area called "Jiangsu" refers to the south coast area (there is also an area called "Hebei"), and "Henan Province" around the Yellow River. There are place names such as "Hebei Province", so it may be good to remember them to grasp the positional relationship including the present age.
China has a wide variety of climates as well as geography. On the sea side located in the south, there is a warm and humid climate, and depending on the location, there is a tropical climate and even a tundra climate.
It is basically a continental dry climate. However, there is a tendency for heavy rainfall in areas where warm and moist air comes in as the monsoon blows from the sea from spring to summer. It's a very simple climate classification, but you can see the general tendency.
Especially when studying history
If you remember such a part (plus the size of the flat land), it may be easier to associate the population and national power because it is directly related to the characteristics of the crops produced in that land.
So far, I have summarized the geography and climate of China, but if I summarize it, I think it will look like this. Also, I would like you to remember a little (I wrote a little in the world of the Ancient Near East) .
Desert area ... You can see that there are many non-agricultural areas, especially in the Taklimakan Desert area. Non-agricultural areas are scattered in places covering the Gobi Desert. The area around the Himalayas is also high in altitude and not very suitable for farming, so livestock farming has developed. Speaking of livestock and China, nomads! The presence of nomads shines everywhere in world history, so it's worth remembering! !! I think. Rather remember. If you trace the origin of the Mongol invasion that came to Japan, it is a horse race that lived in Mongolia, and the Huns who had a great influence on Europe are also China. Even the theory of descendants of the Hunnu, who was in the north of Japan, has a great deal to do with world history.
By the way, among Chinese goats, cashmere goats are raised in Tibet, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, etc. You may have heard of cashmere because it is extremely rare and valuable, and is used in sweaters and mufflers that are soft to the touch.
Looking outside the desert area and the Himalayas, the main crops are large.
You can see that it is divided into. This is also reflected in the food, and it seems that the staple food in China is still wheat-based buns (manto) in the north and rice-based in the south. Especially in the southernmost part, it is warm and abundant in water, and rice cultivation is so popular that two crops are carried out.
In recent years, rice has been improved to produce rice that is resistant to the cold, but rice is originally a plant that is native to warm and watery places.
There are different types of rice, but Japonica rice, which was found in the Yangtze River basin about 10,000 years ago, is made in warm and humid regions and in subarctic climates where the temperature is relatively high in the summer. .. It matches the climate of southern China. By the way, Japonica rice is a rice that is familiar to you in Japan.
Shizuoka and Kagoshima (Shizuoka, which was ranked first in the ranking for many years, but was overtaken by Kagoshima in 2020) are famous for tea in Japan, but there are four prefectures in Kyushu among the best 10 other than both prefectures. As you can see from the fact that it is contained, it is cultivated in a warm place.
It is similar to the fact that it is made in a warm place in China, and the Tang dynasty writer Lu Yu, who wrote the knowledge of tea, described the tea tree as "Kagi in the south" in the book "The Classic of Tea". About. However, tea is widely and commonly consumed in China, so it seems that it has become quite popular in the north in recent years.
As you can see from the easy-to-understand bread-eating region (Europe), soybeans can be cultivated in places where it gets cold in winter, just as soybeans can be cultivated in places that are cool enough to be produced in Russia and Ukraine. Therefore, many wheat and soybeans are produced in the north.
Furthermore, in the northeastern part, there were people who lived by hunting, wildcrafting, and fishing as another means of obtaining food (although it is difficult to see such a life due to the progress of settlement in modern times).
Great Millet (also known as Great Millet, country of origin:Ethiopia) and corn (country of origin:South America) have been introduced since later generations, but are now widely produced.
What kind of river is there in China?
Let's take a look at the terrain around the Yellow River
Let's take a look at the terrain around the Changjiang River
Let's take a look at the climate of China
What kind of crops are produced in China? ??
What are the characteristics of each crop?