Abstract
The basic characteristics of Chinese physical geography and historical socio-economic development in China are introduced in this chapter. China is distinguished by a prominent monsoonal climate in the east of the country, a continental arid climate in the northwest and a highland cold climate on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. During the last several thousand years, Chinese society was built on massive agricultural production, by which the huge numbers of people it supported. It has followed a unique spiral of development in terms of production, population, economy and politics. Due to the close relationship between agriculture and social development of China, abundant researches have been conducted on historical climate change impacts over the past hundred year.
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Notes
- 1.
Mount Qomolangma, known in the West as Mount Everest, comes from Tibetan of China for “Goddess of the Universe”.
- 2.
As these months are the ripening period of plums, it is called “plum rain” season.
- 3.
Mu is a traditional unit of area in China, 1 mu ≈ 667 m2.
- 4.
Four ancient civilizations in the world refers to China, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and ancient India.
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Fang, X., Su, Y., Xiao, L. (2024). Introduction. In: The Social Impacts of Climate Change in China over the Past 2000 Years. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-0202-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-0202-2_1
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Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-97-0201-5
Online ISBN: 978-981-97-0202-2
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