Land use in China
China has four times the population of the U.S., within roughly the same area. With 1.3 billion inhabitants, 20% of the world’s population lives in China. While the rate of population growth has been declining for decades, the total number of inhabitants has been growing and is expected to do so through 2030. China’s urban population is growing rapidly; between 1950 and 2009, the percentage of the population living in urban areas quadrupled from 14% to 48%. Meanwhile, the rural population is declining, opening the landscape in areas that are not urbanized. The forests and farming land of eastern China support far more people and major cities than do the grasslands, deserts, and high mountain regions of the west.
List of ethnic groups in China
The typical use of the English phrase Chinese people generally refers to the Han 漢 people, also known as Han Chinese; they are the largest ethnic group in mainland China, where (as of 2010) some 91.51% of the population was classified as Han (~1.2 billion). Han is the name the Chinese have used for themselves since the Han Dynasty BC 202, whereas the name "Chinese" (used in the West) is of uncertain origin, but possibly derives ultimately from Sanskrit Cina-s "the Chinese," which in turn perhaps comes from the Qin dynasty which preceded the Han dynasty. Besides the Han-Chinese majority of 92%, 55 other ethnic (minority) groups are categorized in present China, numbering approximately 105 million people (8%), mostly concentrated in the bordering northwest, north, northeast, south, and southwest but with some in central interior areas.