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| Land
and Mineral Resources
The composition
and distribution of China??s land resources have three major characteristics:
(1) variety in type--cultivated land, forests, grasslands, deserts
and tideland; (2) many more mountains and plateaus than flatlands
and basins; (3) unbalanced distribution: farmland mainly concentrated
in the east, grasslands largely in the
west and north, and forests mostly in the far northeast and
southwest.
In China today,
94.97 million ha of land are cultivated, mainly in the Northeast
Plain, the North China Plain, the Middle-Lower Yangtze Plain, the
Pearl River Delta Plain and the Sichuan Basin. The fertile black
soil of the Northeast Plain is ideal for growing wheat, corn, sorghum,
soybeans, flax and sugar beets. The deep, brown topsoil of the North
China Plain is planted with wheat, corn, millet, sorghum and cotton.
The Middle-Lower Yangtze Plain??s many lakes and rivers make it particularly
suitable for paddy rice and freshwater fish, hence its designation
of ??land of fish and rice.?? This area also produces large quantities
of tea and silkworms. The purplish soil of the warm and humid Sichuan
Basin is green with crops in all four seasons, including paddy rice,
rapeseed and sugarcane.
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The
Hukou Waterfall on the Yellow River, the only yellow waterfall in
the world.
Pastureland
at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous
Region.
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Forests blanket
133.7 million ha of China. The Greater Hinggan, the Lesser Hinggan
and the Changbai mountain ranges in the northeast are China??s largest
natural forest areas. Major tree species found here include conifers,
such as Korean pine, larch and Olga Bay larch, and broadleaves such
as white birch, oak, willow, elm and Northeast China ash. Major
tree species of the southwest include the dragon spruce, fir and
Yunnan pine, as well as precious teak trees, red sandalwood, camphor
trees, nanmu and padauk. Often called a ??kingdom of plants,?? Xishuangbanna
in southern Yunnan Province is a rarity in that it is a tropical
broadleaf forest playing host to more than 5,000 plant species.
Grasslands in China
cover an area of 400 million ha, stretching more than 3,000 km from
the northeast to the southwest. They are the centers of animal husbandry.
The Inner Mongolian Prairie is China??s largest natural pastureland,
and home to Sanhe horses, Sanhe cattle and Mongolian sheep. The
famous natural pasturelands north and south of the Tianshan Mountains
in Xinjiang are ideal for stock breeding. The famous Ili horses
and Xinjiang fine-wool sheep are raised here.
China??s cultivated
lands, forests and grasslands are among the world??s largest in terms
of sheer area. But due to China??s large population, the areas of
cultivated land, forest and grassland per capita are small, especially
in the case of cultivated land??less than 0.08 ha per capita, or
only one third of the world??s average.
China
is rich in mineral resources, and all the world??s known minerals can
be found here. To date, geologists have confirmed reserves of 153
different minerals, putting China third in the world in total reserves.
Proven reserves of energy sources include coal, petroleum, natural
gas, and oil shale; and radioactive minerals include uranium and thorium.
China??s coal reserves total 1,007.1 billion tons, mainly distributed
in north China, with Shanxi and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
taking the lead. Petroleum reserves are mainly in northwest and also
in northeast China, north China and the continental shelves in east
China. Proven reserves of ferrous metals include iron, manganese,
vanadium and titanium. China??s 45.9 billion tons of iron ore are mainly
distributed in northeast, north and southwest China. The Anshan-Benxi
Area in Liaoning, east Hebei, and Panzhihua in Sichuan are major iron
producers. China has the world??s largest reserves of tungsten, tin,
antimony, zinc, molybdenum, lead, mercury and other nonferrous metals;
its reserves of rare earth metals far exceed the total for the rest
of the world. |
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