Population

Population

China is the country with greater population of the world. At the end of 1999, the global population of China was of 1.259.090.000 inhabitants, without including Special the Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao, and the province of Taiwan. It occupied the 22 percent of the general population of the world.

The average of the population densidad of China is of 130 inhabitants by squared kilometer, with a distribution unbalanced, because in the coast it reachs more than 400, in the central zones to more than 200 and in the northwest to less than 10.

The composition of the population of China is approximately like which it represents the following scheme:

Composition of the population of China

By regions:

urban 30.9%
rural 69.1%

By sex:

masculine 50.8%
feminine 49.2%

By age:

minors of 14 years 25.4%
of 15 to 64 years 67.7%
majors of 65 years 6.9%

Familiar planning

As far as the familiar planning, China combines the state direction with personal wilfulness. The main content is in the delayed marriages and the procreation, little number and eugenesia; it is pleaded so that each marriage only has a piston rod. In the countryside and the regions of ethnic minorities, the concrete measures and the demands as far as more relaxed the familiar planning are something in comparison with the cities and the zones of the ethnic group have. In the field, to the marriages with concrete difficulties it is allowed them to be a second son several years old after the first birth. In the regions of ethnic minorities, according to the own will of each ethnic group and the population, the resources, the economy, the culture and the customs, there are different stipulations: generally, a marriage can have two children, in some places three; and the marriages of the ethnic groups with very little population, are not controlled as far as the number of piston rods.

Family

In China there are 332.970.000 families. The average of members of the urban families is of 3.2 and the one of the rural ones of 4,3. Generally, the Chinese family is trained by the father, the mother and the son or daughter; also families of three exist or more than three generations. As people aspire to the freedom of individual life, the families have tendency to simplify themselves to maintain only the relations immediate.

Before, in the Chinese families only a “head” made the decisions on the familiar subjects and had absolute authority. Now, the father and the mother, sometimes with the other members of the family, elaborate the plan of familiar development and discuss the subjects. Also the division of the domestic tasks is rationalized. As much the husband as the wife voluntarily supports the development of the other part.

The 56 ethnic groups ethnic regional Autonomy

China is a country unified with 56 ethnic groups. According to the data of the Fourth National Census of 1990, the population are of them occupies the 91.96 percent of the national total and the rest 55 ethnic groups represent the 8.04 percent. Due to the numerous population they have, gets used to calling to the other 55 “ethnic minorities”.

The members of the ethnic group have distribute by all the country, concentrating themselves in valleys of the courses average and inferiors of the rivers Huanghe, Changjiang and Zhujiang and in the plain of the Northeast. The 55 ethnic minorities, although they have a little population, are distributed in the 64.3 percent of the territorial surface of the country, mainly in the border regions of the northeast, the north, the northwest and the southwest of China (to see the annexed table). The province of Yunnan is the one of more varied ethnic composition: more than 20 ethnic groups. In the majority of the districts and municipalities of the country they live more than two ethnic elements. This situation of “great put in coexistence and small zones of residence concentrated” of the diverse ethnic groups, created by history, has provided objective conditions for the ample political, economic and cultural interchange, as well as the execution of the system of ethnic regional autonomy.

Population and distribution of the ethnic minorities (According to the Fourth National Demographic Census of 1º of 1990 July)

Ethnic regional autonomy

The basic principles of the Chinese Government to treat the ethnic relations consist of the following thing: equality, unit, mutual aid and common prosperity. According to the Constitution: All the ethnic groups enjoy the equality, the State protects the interests and legitimate rights of the diverse ethnic minorities, prohibit the discrimination and the oppression against any ethnic group, fights the activities of sabotage against the unit of the diverse ethnic groups and it is against the “chauvinism of great ethnic group” and to the ethnic localismo, each ethnic group has the freedom to use and to develop her own language oral and written and freedom to maintain or to reform her customs.

Being based on this fundamental policy, China applies a system of ethnic regional autonomy; that is to say, under direction unified of State, with regions where the ethnic minorities live in compact community as it bases, the corresponding autonomic organisms exert the autonomy right. The ethnic minorities are owners of their own destiny and administer to the own local subjects interns. The Law of Ethnic Regional Autonomy, approved in 1984 in II the Session of I SAW National Popular Assembly, is the fundamental law that it guarantees the exercise of the Constitution on the system of ethnic regional autonomy. In all the country five independent regions have settled down: the independent region of Inner Mongolia (founded 1º of May of 1947), the independent region uigur of Xinjiang (founded 1º of October of 1955), the independent region of the ethnic group zhuang of Guangxi (founded the 5 of March of 1958), the independent region of the ethnic group hui of Ningxia (founded the 25 of October of 1958) and the independent region of Tibet (founded the 9 of September of 1965); 30 independent prefectures and 120 districts (flags) independent, as well as more than 1,300 ethnic corners. The organisms of autonomy of the ethnic independent zones are the popular assemblies and the popular governments of the regions, prefectures and districts (flags) independent. The positions of president or vice-president of the permanent committees of the popular assemblies of the regions, prefectures and districts (flags) independent, as well as the presidents of the independent regions, heads of independent prefectures and mayors of the districts (flags) independent, correspond to citizens of the ethnic group or ethnic groups who exert the regional autonomy in their zone.

Languages oral and written

The ethnic group has their own oral and written language. The language has belongs to the Chinese-tibetano linguistic system. It is the language of use common in China and considerable use in the international scope. The characters have own a history of 6,000 years. In his principles they were wrought signals. The present characters come from the evolution of the inscriptions on tortoise shells and animal bones, of it does about 3,000 years and of later metal inscriptions. Their forms evolved gradually of the drawings towards the outlines, of the figures to the symbols, going of the complicated thing to the simple thing. In principle the composition of the characters has follows the six methods following: the formal expression, the abstract expression, the expression of meaning, the combination of the phoneme and the form, the adaptation of characters of the same articulation, and the partial adaptation of characters of the same articulation. Each character has is a syllable. Many characters are made up of two parts, a radical and a phoneme; thus they express the sense (morfemas) and the sound (phonemes).

The foreigners generally have the impression that the characters have (Chinese) are countless and the Chinese cannot either know them all. How many they exist? The Kangxi Zidian (Kangxi Dictionary) of year 1716 gathers more than 47,000 characters; the Hanyu Dazidian (Great Dictionary of the Language Has), in eight volumes, published between 1986 and 1990, has gathered more than 56,000 characters. In fact, the usual characters are around 3.000. Besides its functions to write down and to transmit the language, thanks to the handwritings expert, the writing of the Chinese becomes an artistic object of high value.