Rich Fauna and Flora in China
China is one of the countries with the greatest diversity of wildlife in the world. Wildlife peculiar to China includes such well-known animals as the giant panda, golden-haired monkey, South China tiger, white-lipped deer, brown-eared pheasant, white-flag dolphin, Chinese alligator and red-crowned crane, totaling more than 100 species.
The black-and-white-haired giant panda is an especially attractive sight. The 1.2-meter-tall red-crowned crane is a snow-white migratory bird. A distinctive patch of red skin tops its grey-brown head, hence its name. The white-flag dolphin is one of the only two species of freshwater whale in the world. In 1980, a male white-flag dolphin was caught for the first time in the Yangtze River, which aroused great interest among dolphin researchers worldwide. Golden snub- nosed monkey is sometimes called the Sichuan golden hair monkey. The monkeys live in temperate forests in mountainous areas where they find and eat young leaves, fruits or seeds, buds, herbs, bark, and flowers. These animals are endangered because of habitat loss. Some nature reserves have been set up to protect the species from extinction.
China is one of the countries with the most abundant plant life in the world. There are more than 32,000 species of higher plants, and almost all the major plants that grow in the northern hemisphere’s frigid, temperate and tropical zones are represented in China. In addition, there are more than 7,000 species of woody plants, including 2,800-odd tree species. China is home to more than 2,000 species of edible plants and 3,000 species of medicinal plants. There are a wide variety of flowering plants.
A flower indigenous to China, the elegant and graceful peony, is treasured as the King of Flowers. During the flowering period, mountain slopes covered with flowers in a riot of colors form a delightful contrast with undulating ridges and peaks. The following are two popular flowers in China.
Plum Blossom
The plum tree is a strong, hardy plant that flowers in spring, even if harsh, snowy weather continues after winter. This represents the strength of the Chinese people. Plum trees usually grow for a long time, and ancient trees are found throughout China. One tree in central China is said to be 1,600 years old.
Peony
The peony is a flowering plant native to Asia, Europe and Western North America. There are perhaps 40 species. They are strong shrubs that can survive cold winters and hot summers. They grow to about one meter high and flower in late spring and early summer. The flowers are large and often have a strong, beautiful, rose- like perfume. Every year in spring thousands of Chinese people go to the small city of Luoyang to celebrate the Peony Festival.
Land and Mineral Resources in China
In China today, 130.04 million hectares of land are cultivated, mainly in the Northeast Plain, the North China Plain, the Middle-Lower Yangtze Plain, the Pearl River Delta Plain and the Sichuan Basin. The fertile black soil of the Northeast China Plain is ideal for growing wheat, corn, and sugar beets. The deep, brown topsoil of the North China Plain is planted with wheat, corn, millet, peanuts, and cotton. Plenty of lakes and rivers on the Middle-Lower Yangtze Plain make it particularly suitable for paddy rice and freshwater fish. The purplish soil of the warm and humid Sichuan Basin is green with crops in all four seasons. The Pearl River Delta abounds with paddy rice, gathered 2—3 times every year.
Forests blanket 158.94 million hectares of China. The Greater Hinggan, the Lesser Hinggan and the Changbai mountain ranges in the northeast are China’s largest natural forest areas. Major tree species of the southwest include the dragon spruce, fir and Yunnan pine. Often called a “kingdom of plants”, Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan Province is a rarity in that it is a tropical host to more than 5,000 plant species.
Grasslands in China cover an area of 400 million hectares, stretching more than 3,000 km from the northeast to the southwest. They are the centers of animal husbandry. The Inner Mongolian Prairie is China’s largest natural pastureland. The famous natural pasturelands north and south of the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang Autonomous Region are ideal for stockbreeding.
China is rich in mineral resources, and all known minerals in the world can be found here. To date, geologists have confirmed reserves of more than 160 different minerals, putting China third in the world in total reserves. China’s coal reserves total 1,006.3 billion tons, mainly distributed in north China, with Shanxi and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region taking the lead. Petroleum reserves are mainly in northwest and also in northeast China, north China and the continental shelves in east China. China’s about 50 billion tons of iron ore are mainly distributed in northeast, north and southwest China. China has the world’s largest reserves of tungsten, tin, antimony, zinc, molybdenum, lead, mercury and other nonferrous metals; its reserves of rare earth metals far exceed the total in the rest of the world.
