The People's Republic of China - A country with its head in the future and its soul in the past

The People's Republic of China is situated in East Asia, on the western shores of the Pacific Ocean. Its borders reach from the central line of the main navigation channel of the Heilongjiang (Huilungkiang) River near Mohe in the north to the Zengum Reef in the Nansha Archipelago in the south, and from the Pamirs in the west to the confluence of the Heilongjiang and the Wushli (Ussuri) River in the east. The total area is about 9.6 million square kilometres, making China one of the largest countries in the world. With a continental land boundary of more than 20,000 kilometres, China adjoins Korea in the east, the People's Republic of Mongolia in the north, the former U.S.S.R. in the northeast and the northwest, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan in the west and southwest, and Burma, Laos and Viet Nam in the south. The continental coastline is more than 18,000 kilometres long, and looks across the seas towards Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. The population of P.R. China is around 1.3 billion.