China Sojourn

The People's Republic of China, commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the most populous in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population.
At 9.6 million square kilometres, the People's Republic of China (PRC) is the world's third or fourth largest country by area. It has a diverse landscape; in the north, near the PRC's borders with Mongolia and Russia's Siberia, the Gobi Desert and forest steppes dominate the dry expanse while lush subtropical forests grow along its southern borders with Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. The terrain in the west is rugged and high altitude, with the Himalayas and the Tian Shan mountain ranges forming the PRC's natural borders with India and Central Asia. In contrast, the PRC's eastern seaboard is low-lying and has a 14,500-kilometre long coastline bounded on the southeast by the South China Sea and on the east by the East China Sea beyond which lies Korea and Japan.

Guizhou (Tongren) adjoins Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality to the north, Yunnan Province to the west, Guangxi Province to the south and Hunan Province to the east. Overall Guizhou is a mountainous province however it is more hilly in the west while the eastern and southern portions are relatively flat. The western part of the province forms part of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. Guizhou is one of the provinces that contains the most minority groups. The minority groups account for more than 37% of the total population and they include Yao, Miao, Yi, Qiang, Dong, Zhuang, Buyi, Bai, Tujia, Gelao and Shui. 55.5% of the province area is designated as autonomous regions for them. Guizhou is the province with highest TFR in China with 2.19.

Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in Sichuan whose capital is Xichang. Liangshan has an area of 60,423 km² and over 4.1 million inhabitants (2002). It is also has the largest population of ethnic Yi people in China. The capital is Xichang The Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC) is a People’s Republic of China space vehicle launch facility (spaceport) approximately 64 km northwest of Xichang City in Sichuan Province. The facility became operational in 1984 and is primarily used to launch powerful thrust rockets and geostationary communications and weather satellites. It is notable as the site of Sino-European space cooperation, with the launch of the first of two Double Star scientific satellites in December 2003. Chinese officials have indicated interest in conducting additional international satellite launches from XSLC.