Education Overview > China Background
The People's Republic of China is sometimes referred to as "Mainland China". It is the most populated country in the world (1.2 billion people) and has the third largest land mass. Around 92% of its people are Han Chinese: the remainder being various ethnic minorities. The official language is Mandarin which is generally the language used in schools.
There are a great many web-based resources that refer to various aspects of Chinese life. There are other sites that gather these links into categories (eg. Jim Becker's site at the University of Norther Iowa is a particularly full example). On the present page you will find a selection of links judged particularly useful for those with a principle interest in education but wishing to develop a broader context of understanding around language, history and geography.
General History and Geography Sources
A map of China, showing the structure of provinces, can be found here.
A map with hypertext explanatory links associated with each province is here.
A useful guide to the history and arts of China is available through this document prepared for teachers: A visual sourcebook of Chinese civilisation.
CNN Visions of China: A set of journalists dispatches on various aspects of China today and in history.
Curriculum resources
Primary source (USA-based) provides links to a large number of lesson plans and resource sets for school work on all aspects of China history and arts.
Rice University Transnational China Project: various resources, essays etc. for teachers
Humbul Humanties Hub resources on China for teaching (UK)
British Museum on Early Imperial China: interactive resources aimed at schools. See also pages on Ancient China.
Chinese Language
There are three written symbol sets.
Hanzi (or Han characters) that exist as "traditional" (used in Taiwan and Hong Kong), "simplified" (after the cultural revolution in mainland China) and "handwriting" (a complication of the other two allowing connected strokes)
Bopomofo (Taiwan and Hong Kong): simple name for the Chinese phonetic syllabary which comprises 37 phonetic characters and 4 tone marking
Pinyin : how to write Chinese pronunciations using Roman characters. In word processing, text is entered phonetically using pinyin on a standard keyboard
Conversational Chinese Online: Online version of textbook with various other resources playable from thsi site.
Chinese (Mandarin): A wikibook
Visualising and hearing the Chinese character set - University of Southern California resource page
BBC Real Chinese introductory course.
Computer language tools resource site for those already learning Chinese.
News Services
Peoples Daily (Chinese)
Beijing Review: Chinas only weekly English news magazine.