Friday Facts -People

This week's install of Friday Facts is about the Chinese People:

For a previous install, click here

PEOPLE
Population (2006 est.): 1,313,973,713

(growth rate: 0.6%); birth rate: 13.2/1000; infant mortality rate: 23.1/1000;

Population density, 135 people/sq km., 4 times greater than the US

Ethnicity, 92% Han, 55 other ethnic groups make up the remainder

REligions, est at 100 million worshipers in China, most Buddhist, also Daoism, Islam and Christianity are practiced.

Literacy rate: 90% (2004 est.) USA 99%

Average life expectancy has risen from 35 years on the eve of liberation in 1949, to 71.8 years in 2002

States of Independence 221 BC (unification under the Qin or Ch'in Dynasty); 1 January 1912 (Manchu Dynasty replaced by a Republic); 1 October 1949 (People's Republic established)

population below poverty line 10% (2001 est.) (USA = 12%, 2004 est.)

China's earliest primitive human discovered so far is known as "Yuanmou Man," a fossil anthropoid unearthed in Yuanmou in Yunnan Province who lived approximately 1.7 million years ago.

China makes up 20% of the world's population but smokes 30% of the worlds cigarettes.

If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

The earliest recorded human settlements in what is today called China were discovered in the Huang He basin and date from about 5000 B.C.