China ( Simplified Chinese : 中تشونغ Chungua ; Traditional Chinese : 中國: Officially known as People's Republic of China ( Simplified Chinese : 中华人民共和تشونغ Chunghua Renmin Gonghe; Traditional Chinese : 中華人民共和國) is the most populous country in the world with more than 1.338 billion inhabitants . It is located in East Asia and is governed by the Communist Party of China under a one-party system . China consists of more than 22 provinces, five autonomous regions and four directly administered municipalities ( Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai , Chongqing andtwo high-level autonomous regions, Hong Kong and Macao) .

The country has an area of ​​9.6 million square kilometers (3.7 million square miles), where the PRC is the third or fourth largest of the total area (depending on the definition of what is included in this total),  and the second largest by land area. The landscape in China varies between forests, plains and deserts ( Gobi and Tklamkan ) in the dry north near Mongolia and Siberia in Russia and sub-tropical forests in the wet south near Vietnam , Laos and Burma . The terrain in the west is rugged and at high altitudes where the Himalayas and the Tianshan Mountains are located andform China's natural border with India and Central Asia . On the other hand, the east coast of the Chinese mainland is low and long coastline 14,500 kilometers bordered to the southeast by the South China Sea and from the east by the East China Sea, which is outside Taiwan, Korea andJapan .

Ancient Chinese civilization is one of the oldest civilizations in the world, flourishing in the fertile yellow river basin that flows through the plain of northern China. Over more than 6,000 years, China's political system has established genetic property systems (also known as breeds). The first of these was the Xia (about 2000 BC) but the subsequent Chin Dynasty was the first to unite in 221 BC. The last dynasties ( Qing Dynasty ) ended in 1911 with the founding of the Republic of China by the Kuomintang and the Chinese National Party. The first half of the twentieth century saw the fall of the country in a period of disintegration and civil wars that divided the country into two main political camps - the Kuomintang and the communists. The major violence ended in 1949 when the Communists settled the civil war and established the People's Republic of China on the mainland . The Kuomintang (KMT), the capital of its republic , was transferred to Taipei in Taiwan,where it is currently confined to Taiwan, the Kinsmen of Matsu and several remote islands. Since then, the People's Republic of China has entered into political disputes with the Republic of Chinaover issues of sovereignty and political status of Taiwan.

Since the introduction of market-based economic reforms in 1978, China has become the fastest growing economy in the world, becoming the world's largest exporter and the second largest importer of goods. China's economy is the second largest economy in the world, in terms of nominal GDP and PPP. China is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council .It is also a member of multilateral organizations including WTO, APEC, BRIC , SCO and G20 .China has a recognized nuclear arsenal and its army is the world's largest in service with the second largest defense budget . China has been described as a potential superpower by a number of academics military analyst s and economic analysts and policy