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.
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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