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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 date4 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 cityNew York City (population: 8,008,280)
0.762Human_development_index 0.95
$6,100 US
GDP per capita $48,000 US
90.9%
Literacy rate 99%
3.6Corruption 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%
100Beijing olympics medal count 110
Eastern Asia, bordering the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea, between North Korea and Vietnam
LocationNorth 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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