China is changing.
Empty in the west, crowded in the east.
The population distribution in China is verry uneven. The most people live in the east because there
are more big cities (more work). And sometimes its almost impossible to live in the west because
there are mountains and deserts and sometimes is can also be too dry or too high(cold) to live there.
To cold is because the relief in China is like a staircase of three steps.
1. Tibet highlands are at an altitude of 4,50 m. The landscape is mostly tundra (an erea in the
polar regions without trees, there are only moss, grass and shrubs). And the ground is
always frozen (permafrost).
2. The plateau (flat or gently golvend area with an altitude of >500 metres) with an altitude of
around 1,000-2,000m.
3. At and altitude of between 1 and 200m there is a plain (flat area with altitude <500) a lot of
people live here.
Too dry: withing China the precipitation can differ between the 50 and 2,000 mm per year.
Population policy
The Chinese government wants to control size and distribution of the population -> population policy.
China has the largest population in the world, when it became to much, you were only allowed to have one
child -> one child policy. If you had more than one you had to pay a lot of money. This prevented fourhundred
million births.
This had major disadvantages, for example the population ageing. This is because of the decrease in the
number of children. But in advantage the life expectancy has increased a lot.
Recently the rules became a little less strict. In the countryside you can have a second child if your first one
was a girl and in the city you can have a second one if one of the parents is and only child.
The government also wants to spread the population more evenly over the country, so they are trying to make
people move to west by giving free houses and providing jobs.
In China the majority of the population is non-Chinese but they still have don't have much of influence in their
region.
Hong Kong and Shenzhen
Al the towns and cities in the delta of the Pearl river have expanded verry fast. This is because China has
opened its borders.
Hong Kong is now part of China but it as a British colony till 1997. It’s a wealthy, highly developed city. In the
world's top 10 metropolises, Honk Kong is 5th place. A metropolis is a verry large city that plays an important
rule on a global scale in many areas.
Shenzen is a mega city with a population of 14 million. In 1980 Shenzen became the first special economic
zone in China. An SEZ is an ‘open area where foreign companies can set up. In China there were many low-
paid, unskilled workers for making labour-intensive products. 10 thousands of factories, including many
multinationals from western countries, moved from Hong Kong to Shenzhen.
Booming coastal region
Empty in the west, crowded in the east.
The population distribution in China is verry uneven. The most people live in the east because there
are more big cities (more work). And sometimes its almost impossible to live in the west because
there are mountains and deserts and sometimes is can also be too dry or too high(cold) to live there.
To cold is because the relief in China is like a staircase of three steps.
1. Tibet highlands are at an altitude of 4,50 m. The landscape is mostly tundra (an erea in the
polar regions without trees, there are only moss, grass and shrubs). And the ground is
always frozen (permafrost).
2. The plateau (flat or gently golvend area with an altitude of >500 metres) with an altitude of
around 1,000-2,000m.
3. At and altitude of between 1 and 200m there is a plain (flat area with altitude <500) a lot of
people live here.
Too dry: withing China the precipitation can differ between the 50 and 2,000 mm per year.
Population policy
The Chinese government wants to control size and distribution of the population -> population policy.
China has the largest population in the world, when it became to much, you were only allowed to have one
child -> one child policy. If you had more than one you had to pay a lot of money. This prevented fourhundred
million births.
This had major disadvantages, for example the population ageing. This is because of the decrease in the
number of children. But in advantage the life expectancy has increased a lot.
Recently the rules became a little less strict. In the countryside you can have a second child if your first one
was a girl and in the city you can have a second one if one of the parents is and only child.
The government also wants to spread the population more evenly over the country, so they are trying to make
people move to west by giving free houses and providing jobs.
In China the majority of the population is non-Chinese but they still have don't have much of influence in their
region.
Hong Kong and Shenzhen
Al the towns and cities in the delta of the Pearl river have expanded verry fast. This is because China has
opened its borders.
Hong Kong is now part of China but it as a British colony till 1997. It’s a wealthy, highly developed city. In the
world's top 10 metropolises, Honk Kong is 5th place. A metropolis is a verry large city that plays an important
rule on a global scale in many areas.
Shenzen is a mega city with a population of 14 million. In 1980 Shenzen became the first special economic
zone in China. An SEZ is an ‘open area where foreign companies can set up. In China there were many low-
paid, unskilled workers for making labour-intensive products. 10 thousands of factories, including many
multinationals from western countries, moved from Hong Kong to Shenzhen.
Booming coastal region
