View Monkey's travels in China

China

FAST FACTS

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Population:

1,330,044,544 (2008)

Land area:

9,326,410 sq. km.

Capital:

Beijing (pop: 12,033,000; 2005)

Economy:

In 2006, China ranked 88th in the UNDP Human Development Index and 4th in total GDP, with a per capita GDP of $2,033.90. Public debt accounts for 18.4 percent of total GDP, while 8 percent of Chinese are beneath the poverty line.

Main language(s):

Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, several regional dialects and languages)

Monkey's name:

猴子 Hóuzi (in Mandarin; tones tricky to convey phonetically)

Fun fact:

There are over 60,000 characters in written Chinese, but only about 4,000 are commonly used. College graduates tend to know about 6,000 characters, and only a few people manage to learn more than 15,000.