ABSTRACT
Situated in eastern Asia, the People's Republic of China, home to nearly 1.3 billion people, is the most populous nation on earth today. With an area of 9.6 million square kilometers (about 3.7 million square miles), China is second only to Russia and Canada in size, and is almost as large as the whole of Europe or about the size of the continental United States. China shares borders with 14 countries and has an extremely diverse climate.
