Compare any two countries
China | Country | 
United States |
Head of state: President Hu Jintao |
Leader
| 
President: Barack Obama |
Communist state
|
Political system
| Constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition
|
221 BC (unification under the Qin or Ch'in Dynasty); 1 January 1912 (Qing or Ch'ing Dynasty replaced by the Republic of China); 1 October 1949 (People's Republic of China established)
| Independence date | 4 July 1776 (from Great Britain)
|
1,330,040,000
| Population
| 303,825,000
|
73.18 years
|
Life expectancy
| 78.14 years
|
Beijing
|
Capital
| Washington, DC
|
| Shanghai (population: 14,608,500) | Largest city | New York City (population: 8,008,280) |
| 0.762 | Human_development_index
| 0.95 |
$6,100 US
|
GDP per capita
| $48,000 US
|
90.9%
|
Literacy rate
| 99%
|
| 3.6 | Corruption perception index
| 7.3 |
| 21.3% | Percentage of women in parliament
| 16.6% |
| Legal |
Death Penalty
| Legal |
Daoist (Taoist), Buddhist, Christian 3%-4%, Muslim 1%-2%
note: officially atheist (2002 est.)
|
Religion
| Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, other Christian 1.6%, Jewish 1.7%, Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim 0.6%, other or unspecified 2.5%, unaffiliated 12.1%, none 4% (2007 est.)
|
Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghainese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, minority languages (see Ethnic groups entry)
|
Languages
| English 82.1%, Spanish 10.7%, other Indo-European 3.8%, Asian and Pacific island 2.7%, other 0.7% (2000 census)
note: Hawaiian is an official language in the state of Hawaii
|
| Liu Yongxing ($3.0bn US) | Wealthiest citizen
| William Gates III ($40.0bn US) |
4%
|
Unemployment rate
| 7.2%
|
electrical and other machinery, including data processing equipment, apparel, textile, iron and steel, optical and medical equipment
|
Exports
| agricultural products (soybeans, fruit, corn) 9.2%, industrial supplies (organic chemicals) 26.8%, capital goods (transistors, aircraft, motor vehicle parts, computers, telecommunications equipment) 49.0%, consumer goods (automobiles, medicines) 15.0% (2003)
|
$420,800,000,000 $
|
External Debt
| $12,250,000,000,000 US
|
Renminbi yuan (RMB) per US dollar - 6.9385 (2008 est.), 7.61 (2007), 7.97 (2006), 8.1943 (2005), 8.2768 (2004)
|
Currency Exchange Rate
|
|
4.3%
|
Military budget as a percentage of GDP
| 4.06%
|
| 100 | Beijing olympics medal count
| 110 |
Eastern Asia, bordering the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea, between North Korea and Vietnam
| Location | North America, bordering both the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, between Canada and Mexico
|
9,326,410 km sq
|
Area
| 9,161,920 km sq
|
14,500 km
|
Coastline
| 19,924 km
|
extremely diverse; tropical in south to subarctic in north
|
Climate
| mostly temperate, but tropical in Hawaii and Florida, arctic in Alaska, semiarid in the great plains west of the Mississippi River, and arid in the Great Basin of the southwest; low winter temperatures in the northwest are ameliorated occasionally in January and February by warm chinook winds from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains
|
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