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China's Location in the World ( Click the map to enlarge it! )

Map of the World

China ranges from mostly plateaus and mountains in the west to lower lands in the east. Principal rivers flow from west to east, including the Yangtze (central), the Yellow River (Huang He, north-central), and the Amur (northeast), and sometimes toward the south (including the Pearl River, Mekong (river), and Brahmaputra), with most Chinese rivers emptying into the Pacific Ocean.

China is an entity extending over a large area in East Asia, which is seen variously as a nation and/or multinational. China is one of the world's oldest civilizations with nearly 4,000 years of continuous history.Prior to the 19th century, it possessed an advanced economy; but successive dynasties missed the Industrial Revolution that occurred in Europe and China began to decline. In the 19th and 20th century, European and Japanese imperialism, internal weakness and civil war damaged the country and its economy, and led to the overthrow of imperial rule. In 1949, after major combat in the Chinese Civil War had ended, two states calling themselves "China" emerged: