Chinese History and Statistics -- Page 12

Animal Life

China is rich in vertebrate fauna, with about 3,440 species. The country can be divided into two zoogeographical regions: the palearctic region in the north and the oriental region in the south. The palearctic region covers the Tibetan Plateau, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and northeast and north China, where horses, camels, tapirs, river foxes, and forest jerboa are the major native mammals. The oriental region includes southwest, south and central China, where the common mammals are Chinese pangolins, monkeys, apes, gibbons, and tree shrews. Since the late 1960s the Chinese government has instituted programs to conserve and protect wildlife, of which the giant panda is the most publicized species.

Resources

China is well endowed with mineral resources and has the world's largest reserves of antimony and tungsten. Antimony resources come mainly from southwestern Hunan province, and China currently produces almost 20% of the world's output. Tungsten reserves are found mainly in Jiangxi, Hunan, and Guangdong provinces, and China produces about 15% of the world's output. China also has considerable reserves of bauxite (from which aluminum is made), iron ore, tin, lead, manganese, mercury, and molybdenum. Major deficiencies are copper (for which aluminum can be substituted), nickel, and phosphates. China has the world's largest coal reserves, most of which China. Its potential hydroelectric power is in the range of 500,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 kW but the installed capacity today is only 26,000,000 kW. Southwest, central, and south China has nearly 84% of the country's waterpower resources. China has proved oil reserves of more than 22 million barrels; by 1987 it had become the world's fourth largest oil producer. Oilfields are spread east-west in a curve from the Manchurian plain through the North China plain, Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu to Xinjiang. Another belt runs north-south along the offshore seas from Bohai in the Yellow Sea southward along the continental shelf to the South China Sea.