Country Scorecard - China at a glance

	Country Scorecard - China at a glance

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China

Sources: United Nations Statistics Division and World Bank

China is the largest country in the world in terms of population. It has more than 1.3 billion inhabitants. In terms of total area size, China is the fourth largest country in the world. Largely because of its huge population, China is the second biggest economy in the world. However, taking the GDP per capita at PPP, China is still a developing country. Despite the fact that the data of the UN is a bit old (2003), the living standard of Chinese is far away from reaching Western standards. Another aspect, which has to be considered is that there are huge regional disparities within China. The economic activity rate is not that good, in contrast to the quite low (official) unemployment rate.

Chinese live about 71.6 years on average, which is a quite good figure. With the drinking water coverage and especially the sanitation coverage rate it can be seen that China is still a developing country. On the other hand, the AIDS (HIV) rate is very low. Although the UN have not published data for the greenhouse emissions, other sources say that China is soon the world's largest emitter of GHG. The average school life expectancy is quite low with 11 years and also the tertiary education enrolment ratio is very low. A positive aspect of Chinese education system is that almost all young people are literated, while there are still many unliterated adults.

Further Resources:

Wikipedia

CIA World Fact Book