Land area

9,561,000 sq km

Population

1.32bn (end-2007; official estimate)

Main towns

Population (millions) of main urban areas

Shanghai: 15.6 Chongqing: 5.1

Beijing (capital): 13.1 Wuhan: 4.9

Guangzhou: 11.0 Harbin: 4.8

Shenzhen: 8.5 Shenyang: 4.4

Dongguan: 6.5 Chengdu: 3.8

Tianjin: 5.2 Zhengzhou: 3.5

Climate

Continental, with extremes of temperature; subtropical in the south-east

Weather in Shanghai (altitude 4 metres)

Hottest months, July and August, 23-33°C (average daily minimum and maximum); coldest month, January, -1 to 9°C; driest month, September, less than 5 mm average rainfall; wettest month, June, 160-165 mm average rainfall

Language

Mainly putonghua, or Standard Chinese, based on northern Chinese (the Beijing dialect known as Mandarin); local dialects and languages are also used

Measures

The metric system is used alongside certain standard Chinese weights and measures, of which the most common are:

1 jin = 0.5 kg 2,000 jin = 1 tonne

1 dan = 50 kg 20 dan = 1 tonne

1 mu = 0.0667 ha 15 mu = 1 shang = 1 ha

Currency

Renminbi (Rmb), or yuan. Rmb1 = 10 jiao = 100 fen. Average exchange rate in 2010: Rmb6.77:US$1

Fiscal year

January-December

Time

8 hours ahead of GMT

Public holidays

New Year, January 1st-3rd; Chinese New Year, February 2nd-8th; Qingming Festival, April 3rd-5th; Labour Day, May 1st; Dragon Boat Festival, June 4th-6th; Mid-Autumn Day, September 10th-12th; National Day, October 1st-7th. All public holidays are technically one day long except for Chinese New Year and National Day, which are three days. When the holiday covers weekdays in excess of this figure, they are compensated for by working weekends around the holiday