Official Name: People's Republic of China

Capital: Beijing

Population: 1.32 billion

Area: 9.6 million square kilometers

National flag: Red flag with five stars.

National emblem: Tiananmen Gatetower under five stars, encircled by ears of grain and with a gear wheel below.

Languages: Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghainese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, and Hakka dialects, as well as minority languages.

In 1958, the First National People's Congress approved, at its Fifth Session, the adoption of the Pinyin (Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet) for spelling Chinese names and places in Roman letters, but the Pinyin system was not popularly used until the late 1970s.

Pinyin is now widely seen in China, and it replaces earlier Romanization spelling systems.

Currency:Renminbi (RMB)/yuan