China

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia comprising a vast continental territory including the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Beijing serves as its capital and Shanghai as its largest city. As of the end of 2024, it has a population of approximately 1.408 billion, making it the world's second-most populous nation. It is one of the world's two largest economies by nominal GDP, the largest by purchasing power parity, and the top merchandise exporter.[](https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202501/t20250117_1958331.html)[](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/)[](https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-population/CN) Governed since 1949 as a unitary Marxist-Leninist one-party socialist republic under the exclusive leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which exercises absolute control over the state apparatus, military, judiciary, and economy without competitive multiparty elections.[](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinese-communist-party)[](https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/decoding-chinese-politics/introduction-black-box-chinese-policy)

China, officially thePeople's Republic of China(PRC), is a country in East Asia. With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the second-most populous country after India, representing 17% of the world population. China borders fourteen countries by land across an area of 9.6 million square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), making it the third-largest country by area. The country is divided into 33 province-level divisions: 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities, and 2 semi-autonomous special administrative regions. Beijing is the capital, while Shanghai is the most populous city by urban area and largest financial center.