Welcome to China

China (Traditional: 中國; Simplified: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo) refers to a number of states and cultures that have existed and are viewed as having succeeded one another in continental East Asia for the last 4000 years. Depending on one's point of view, modern China can be described as a single civilization or multiple civilizations, as a single state or multiple states, and as a single nation or multiple nations.

China is one of the world's oldest civilizations, with a history characterized by repeated divisions and reunifications amid alternating periods of peace and war and violent imperial dynastic change. The country's territorial extent expanded outwards from a core area in the North China Plain, and varied according to its moving fortunes. For centuries, China was one of the world's most technologically advanced civilizations, and East Asia's dominant cultural influence. However, by the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, China stagnated and fell behind, and was too weak militarily to repel European interference or Japanese invasion. Imperial monarchy in China ended with the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912; however the next four decades were marred by warlordism, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Chinese Civil War.

A communist victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 established the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 in Beijing, which has since then governed a large amount of territory known as Mainland China. The PRC has also assumed control over Hong Kong in 1997 and Macau in 1999, which are not considered parts of Mainland China.

From: Wikipedia