China climate and terrain · Climate and terrain in China
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Climate and terrain in China
Climate and terrain in China
The climate is extremely diverse, from tropical regions in the south to subarctic in the north. Hainan Island is roughly at the same latitude as Jamaica, while Harbin, one of the largest cites in the north, is at roughly the latitude of Montreal. North China has four distinct seasons with intensely hot summers and bitterly cold winters. Southern China tends to be milder and wetter. The further north and west one travels, the drier the climate.
Back in Mao's day, the rule was that buildings in areas North of the Yangtze River got heat in the winter, but anything South of it did not ? this meant unheated buildings in places like Shanghai and Nanjing, which routinely see temperatures below freezing in winter. The rule has long since been relaxed considerably, but some effects are still visible. In general, Chinese use less heating, less building insulation, and more warm clothing than Westerners in comparable climates. In a school or an apartment or office building, even if the rooms are heated, the corridors are not. Double glazing is quite rare, students wear winter jackets in class, and long underwear is very common.
There is also a wide range of terrain to be found in China with many inland mountain ranges, high plateaus, and deserts in center and far west. Plains, deltas, and hills dominate the east. The Pearl River Delta region around Guangzhou and Hong Kong and the Yangtze delta around Shanghai are major economic powerhouses, as is the North China plain around Beijing and the Yellow River. On the border between the Tibet Autonomous Region and the nation of Nepal lies Mount Everest, at 8,850 m, the highest point on earth. The Turpan depression, in northwest China's Xinjiang is the lowest point in the country, at 154 m below sea level. This is also the second lowest point on land in the world after the Dead Sea.
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China Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.