The largest country in Asia is China. With an area of 9.6 km2, it is second only to Eurasia and Canada, being in an honorable third place. It is not surprising that such an area is endowed with great potential and a wide range of minerals. Today, China is taking the lead in their development, production and export.
Minerals
To date, reserves of more than 150 varieties of minerals have been explored. The state has established itself in the fourth world position in terms of subsoil volumes. The main attention of the country is focused on the extraction of coal, iron, copper ores, bauxite, antimony and molybdenum. Far from the periphery of the interests of industrialists is the development of tin, mercury, lead, manganese, magnetite, uranium, zinc, vanadium and phosphate rocks.
Coal deposits in China are located mainly in the northern and northwestern regions. According to preliminary estimates, their number reaches 330 billion tons. Iron ore is mined in the northern, southwestern and northeastern regions of the country. Its explored reserves total more than 20 billion tons.
China is also well endowed with oil and natural gas. Their deposits are located both on the mainland and on the continental plume.
Today, China leads in many positions, and gold production was no exception. At the end of the 2000s, he managed to overtake South Africa. Consolidation and foreign investment in the country’s mining industry has led to the creation of larger, technologically advanced players. As a result, in 2015, the nation’s gold production nearly doubled over the past ten years to 360 metric tons.
Land and forest resources
Due to active human intervention and urbanization, today China’s forests cover less than 10% of the country’s total area. Meanwhile, these are the vast forests of northeast China, the Qinling Mountains, the Taklamakan Desert, the primeval forest of southeast Tibet, the Shennonjia Mountains in Hubei Province, the Hengduan Mountains, the rainforest in Hainan, and the mangroves of the South China Sea. These are coniferous and deciduous forests. More often than others, you can find here: larch, elm, oak, birch, willow, cedar and Chinese ash pan. On the southwestern slopes of the Chinese mountains, sandalwood, camphor, nanmu and padauk grow, which are often referred to as “royal plants”.
More than 5,000 biome species can be found in tropical broadleaf forests located in the south of the country. It should be noted that such a diversity of flora and fauna is extremely rare.
Harvest
China processes more than 130 million. hectares of land. The fertile black soil of the Northeast Plain, covering over 350,000 km2, produces good crops of wheat, corn, soybeans, sorghum, flax and sugar beet. The deep brown soils of the plains of northern China grow wheat, corn, millet and cotton.
The flat terrain of the Middle Lower Yangtze and many lakes and shallow rivers create favorable conditions for growing rice and freshwater fish, which is why it is often called the “land of fish and rice”. This area also produces a large amount of tea and silkworms.
The red earth of the warm and humid Sichuan Basin is covered in greenery all year round. Rice, rapeseed and sugar cane are also grown here. These regions are called the “land of abundance”. The Pearl River Delta is rich in rice harvested 2-3 times a year.
Grassland in China covers an area of 400 million. ha, stretching over 3,000 km from northeast to southwest. These are livestock centers. The so-called Mongolian prairie is the largest natural pasture in the state, and is a breeding center for horses, cattle and sheep.
China’s cultivated land, forests and grasslands are among the largest in the world in terms of area. However, due to the overpopulation of the country, the amount of cultivated land per capita is only a third of the world average.
