Enter the West

Author: Huang Wei, Wang Yanjuan
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2002-01-01
Features: Situated in the central part of the Asian continent, the western region of China is on the roof of the world. With an area larger than half of Europe, it has a favorable geographical location. From western China, one can easily travel westward to reach Central Asian countries and even Amsterdam in Europe. It adjoins Southeast Asia and the South Asian subcontinent in the southwest, and the Beibu Gulf and South China Sea in the south. The region encompasses one-third of China's administrative regions—Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou provinces, Chongqing Municipality, and the Ningxia Hui, Xinjiang Uygur, Guangxi Zhuang, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet autonomous regions. Covering 5.4 million square kilometers, western China equals 56 percent of the nation's total land area and supports a population of 280 million, or 23 percent of the national total. To get to know western China, begin with its most famous waterways, the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, both of which have nurtured the country's 5,000-year-old civilization. Taking meltwater from the Kunlun and Himalayan mountains in the western region, the Yangtze and Yellow rivers flow eastward before emptying into the sea.