The People's Republic of Zhonghua

Zhonghua, Officially The People's Republic of Zhonghua (Mandarin:中华人民共和国) is a nation located in the east of Gaea. Zhonghua is one of a handfull of communist nations on Gaea.&nbsp Zhonghua has 8 Provinces and 3 Municipalities.

To the north Zhonghua borders United Menshevik Republics of Pavlovsk (UMRP).

Zhonghua is the fourth largest economy by Nominal and in 2010 is set to become the second largest economy by PPP by getting ahead of Carpathia.

History
Zhonghua has a very rich history spanning many centuries.

Yuan Dynasty Empire (1278 - 1495)
During the Yuan Dynasty, Zhonghua had control over most of East and much of South East Orientia and this control can be seen as Zhongguo brought Buddhism and Taoism to these regions also Mandarin and the Zhonghuan writing system was givn to many countries nearby and they are still in use today.

The empire was one of the largest on Gaea, it was home to over 70 million people.

Map of Yuan Empire

World War 1
During WW1 Zhonghua wasn't part of it until 1916? when Kobiyashi was on the Allies side and invaded Axis parts of Nanzhao including Ningbei and northern Shandong and demanded control over these areas the government refused and this lead to a war that saw northern parts of Nanzhao come into Kobiyashian control excluding all colonies. During all this upheaval Tibet and Herat claimed independance and this caused a war that saw both territories beome indpendance.

Inter-War Period
Between WW1 and WW2 the remaning parts of Nanzhao united and military forces where built

World War 2
A year before WW2, Zhonghuan forces went to war with Kobiyashi that saw thousands of troops dead and Kobiyashi still controlled Ningbei and many parts of Shandong. During all the war over 3 million died due to a famine that was caused by an unusualy cold, wet winter.

1947 - 1973
In 1947 The People's Republic of Zhonghua was proclaimed and not long after this the new Chairman Xiang Beiping iniciated the 1st or Cultural Revolution that saw thousands of foreigns expelled and many important cultural relics and buildings destroyed to make way for a new Zhonghua that now had suffered loss of over 22 million with over 16.5 million civillians.

During the cultural revolution many Pavoloskian advisors were sent to Zhonghua to assit in the creation of a communist state.

Human Rights
While economic and social controls have been greatly relaxed in Zhonghua since the 1970s, political freedom is still tightly controlled by both central and local governments. The Constitution of the People's Republic of Zhonghua states that the "fundamental rights" of citizens include freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, universal suffrage, and property rights. However, these provisions do not afford significant protection in practice against criminal prosecution by the State.

Censorship of political speech and information is openly and routinely used to silence criticism of government and the ruling Communist Party.

The Internet is quite open but many words are censored and especially pornography is banned and many social networking sites run in other countries are also banned but there are three major sites, with Facechat being the largest with over 250 million members in Mandarin speaking Orientia.

Geography and Climate
The Geography and Climate vary significantly across Zhonghua. The south is Tropical and Sub-Tropical and holds over 60% of Zhonghua's Biodiversity. Temperatures range from 10°C - 35°C in the south.

In the east along the East Zhonghua Sea, there is alluvial plains where a majority of the population live.

In the far north of Zhonghua the climate is more temperate and cooler and it usually snows during the winter months. In Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia the climate is very dry and hot in the summer and cold in winter where it can drop below zero for weeks on end.

Flora and Fauna
Zhonghua is one of the most diverse countries on Gaea, lying on two of the major ecoregions. The IndoMalayan and Palearctic. In the Indomalayan region the species that can be found include the South Zhonghua tiger, Dwarf Panda and Orientian Elephant. And in the Palearctic region there are species such as Camels, Horses and Dholes.

Some overlap exists between the two regions because of natural dispersal and migration, and deer or antelope, bears, wolves, pigs, and rodents are found in all of the diverse climatic and geological environments.

Zhonghua contains also a variety of forest types. Both northeast and northwest reaches contain mountains and cold coniferous forests, supporting animal species which include moose and black bear, along with some 133 types of birds. Moist conifer forests can have thickets of bamboo as an understorey, replaced by rhododendrons in higher montane stands of juniper and yew. Subtropical forests, which dominate central and southern Zhonghua, support an astounding 166,000 species of flora. Tropical rainforest and seasonal rainforests, though confined to Ningnan, Guangxi and Hainan, actually contain a quarter of all the plant and animal species found in Zhonghua.

Economy
Zhonghua is one of Gaea's largest economies with it being a major manufacturing hub. Zhonghua had a centrally planned communist economy where the government controlled every aspect including the price of commodities and energy and all of the large companies where State owned and controlled such as Zhonghua State Power Grid Company and there was little to no outside intervention. but during the 1970's the then Chairman Ji Bingxuan saw that widespread poverty and failing companies wheren't what Zhonghua needed so six places along the Zhonghuan coast where chosen to be Special Economic Zones (SEZ), where the strict communst policies where relaxed significantly and this attracted many business from more wealthy neighbouring nations and ever since Zhonghua's economy has been growing at around 9.4% annually and has shown no signs of slowing for the near future.

But all the growth has been concentrated along the east coast provinces with the more central and western provinces still being quite poor.

Adminstrative Divisions
Zhonghua is made up of 15 Provinces, 3 Autonomous Regions, 2 Municipalities and one Special Administrative Region. Each Province, Autonomous Region and Municipality is the further broken down into Sub-Provincial cities, Prefecture Level cities and Autonomous Regions.




 * 1 Ningbei
 * 2 Hebei
 * 3 Hubei
 * 4 Inner Pavalosk
 * 5 Heilongjiang
 * 6 Inner Mongolia
 * 7 Xinjiang
 * 8 Ningxia
 * 9 Heilonghuxi
 * 10 Heilonghu
 * 11 Hunan
 * 12 Shanxi
 * 13 Hejiang
 * 14 Shandong
 * 15 Dongguan Municipality
 * 16 Harbin Special Administrative Region
 * 17 Guangdong
 * 18 Guangzhen Municipality
 * 19 Hainan
 * 20 Guangxi
 * 21 Ningnan

Roads
Zhonghua has an extensive network of Expressways spanning thousnds of Km but only 75% of them are paved with many of them especially in the west and south west being nothing more than dirt and can be very dangerous but the Central government has promised by 2015 to have all expressways paved and adequtely sign posted. These expressways have no speed limit and vehicles can be seen doing 280 Kmph.

Railway
Zhonghua has an large railway netwok comprising of The Zhonghua Highspeed Railway and normal railways.

The Highspeed railways link many of the large cities on the west and some of the central cites together in Domestically produced trains that can reach speeds of upto 320 Kmph.

Demographics
Demographics of Nanzhao, Facts and statistics of Nanzhao

Zhonghua is Gaea's most populus nation by far with well over 1.5 Billion people and the population is set to hit 1.6 Billion in five years or so. But in recent years population growth has slowed as wealth has risen.

Major Urban Areas
Zhonghua has over 370 cities with population over 500,000 and 150 cities with an urban population over 1,000,000 and four cities with populations over 10 Million.

The urbanisation rate in Zhonghua stood at 3.6% in 2008 with the Urban population at 943.9 Million which is more than the entire population of the second largest country India.

Public Healthcare
Zhonghua has Gaea's largest Public health service and is called the Zhonghua Health Service or ZHS, it is also free to all for most procedures and with all rural citizens being provided with a completely free health service but due to Zhonghua's immense size providing this has been hard especially in the less populated west where only 1/4 of all doctors in Zhonghua are.

During the Taipang Revolution the Communist Party started the Patriotic Health Campaign, which was aimed at improving sanitation and hygiene, as well as attacking several diseases. This has shown major results as diseases like cholera, typhoid, and scarlet fever were nearly eradicated.

After the economic reforms health increased more rapidly and urban hospitals are at the same standards as their western counterparts, if not even better in some cases. Despite significant improvements in health and the introduction of western style medical facilities, Zhonghua has several emerging public health problems, which include respiratory problems as a result of widespread air pollution and hundreds of millions of cigarette smokers, a possible future HIV/AIDS epidemic, and an increase in obesity among urban youths.

Culture
Zhonghua is rich in culture. The country has many distinct cultural regions with dialects and food. One of the most widely known is the Kunshanese culture, especially the food as due to Harbin Special Administrative Region being in the region the culture was spead to the UK and then it was spread around the world.