North China

For other uses, see North China (disambiguation).

North China (Chinese: 华北) is a region of the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia.

North China
North People's Republic of China region
Country	People's Republic of China
Area
• Total	2,185,105 km2 (843,674 sq mi)
Population [1]
• Total	164,823,136
• Density	75/km2 (200/sq mi)
GDP	2022[2]
- Total	¥14.909 trillion ($2.217 trillion)
- Per Capita	¥90,457 ($13,449)

Northern China (a much broader area named Beifang)

Part of the larger region of Northern China (Beifang), it lies north of the Qinling–Huaihe Line,^[3] with its heartland in the North China Plain. Most inhabitants here speak variants of Northern Chinese languages such as Mandarin, which includes Beijing dialect and its cousin variants. The Beijing dialect is largely the basis of Standard Chinese (or Standard Mandarin), the official language of the People's Republic of China. Jin Chinese and Mongolian are also widely spoken due to the political and cultural history of the area.

History

In prehistory, the region was home to the Yangshao and Longshan cultures. Peking Man was found near modern-day Beijing.

The main agricultural lands of China lay in the area known as the Central Plain, an area located bordered by the Yangtze River to its south and the Yellow River to its north. Further north of the Yellow River lies the Gobi Desert and steppe lands that extend west across Eurasia. This region has long, harsh winters. It has relatively little in the way of water resources.^[4]: 132

Despite these challenges, some forms of agriculture have been successful in this region, especially animal husbandry, certainly of horse and camel, and possibly other types of animals. The crops Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica, both types of millet grain, are believed to be indigenous to northern China. Panicum miliaceum is known from the Cishan culture in Hebei province, recovered as phytoliths from pits in stratigraphic sections. Sediments from the pits have radiocarbon dates from 8500 to 7500 BCE. Archaeological evidence of charred grains found in early Holocene layers in Hebei province at Nanzhuangtou and Cishan has led scholars to revise the earliest dates associated with millet by about two millennia. Millet sites are concentrated along the boundaries of the Loess and Mongolian Plateau, separated by a mountain chain from the Huabei plain and the Dongbei plain, North China's main alluvial plains, located to the west. Millet cultivation was similarly situated relative to the Qinling mountains at Dadiwan, and the Yitai mountains at Yuezhuang. Macrofossil evidence (charred grains of foxtail and broomcorn millet) has been recovered from Xinglonggou in Inner Mongolia, Xinle in Liaoning, Cishan in Hebei, and Dadiwan in Gansu, among other sites in Eastern and Central China.^[5]

Administrative divisions in the PRC

GB[6]	ISO №[7]	Province	Chinese Name	Capital	Population¹	Density²	Area³	Abbreviation/Symbol
Jīng	11	Beijing Municipality	北京市 Běijīng Shì	Beijing	19,612,368	1,167.40	16,800	BJ	京
Jīn	12	Tianjin Municipality	天津市 Tiānjīn Shì	Tianjin	12,938,224	1,144.46	11,305	TJ	津
Jì	13	Hebei Province	河北省 Héběi Shěng	Shijiazhuang	71,854,202	382.81	187,700	HE	冀
Jìn	14	Shanxi Province	山西省 Shānxī Shěng	Taiyuan	35,712,111	228.48	156,300	SX	晋
Měng (Nèi Měnggǔ)	15	Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Nei Mongol Autonomous Region	內蒙古自治区 Nèi Měnggǔ Zìzhìqū	Hohhot	24,706,321	20.88	1,183,000	NM	蒙(內蒙古)

Cities with urban area over one million in population

Provincial capitals in bold.

#	City	Urban area[8]	District area[8]	City proper[8]	Prov.	Census date
1	Beijing	16,446,857	18,827,262	19,612,368	BJ	2010-11-01
2	Tianjin	9,562,255	11,090,783	12,938,693	TJ	2010-11-01
3	Taiyuan	3,154,157	3,426,519	4,201,592	SX	2010-11-01
4	Shijiazhuang	2,770,344	2,834,942	10,163,788	HE	2010-11-01
5	Tangshan	2,128,191	3,187,171	7,577,289	HE	2010-11-01
6	Baotou	1,900,373	2,096,851	2,650,364	NM	2010-11-01
7	Hohhot	1,497,110	1,980,774	2,866,615	NM	2010-11-01
8	Datong	1,362,314	1,737,514	3,318,054	SX	2010-11-01
9	Handan	1,316,674	1,445,338	9,174,683	HE	2010-11-01
10	Baoding	1,038,195	1,138,521	11,194,382	HE	2010-11-01

See also

• China portal

• Northern China
  • North China Plain
  • Inner Mongolia
  • Northeast China
  • Northwest China
• East China

References

1. "Main Data of the Seventh National Population Census". National Bureau of Statistics of China. Archived from the original on May 11, 2021.
2. GDP-2022 is a preliminary data "Home - Regional - Quarterly by Province" (Press release). China NBS.
3. Li, Shuangshuang; Yang, Saini; LIU, Xianfeng (10 September 2015). "Spatiotemporal variability of extreme precipitation in north and south of the Qinling-Huaihe region and influencing factors during 1960-2013". The Chinese Journal of Geography. 34 (3): 354–363. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
4. Hu, Richard (2023). Reinventing the Chinese City. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-21101-7.
5. The Cambridge World History Volume II A World With Agriculture 12,000 BCE-500CE. Cambridge University Press. 2015. pp. 316–320.
6. GB/T 2260 codes for the provinces of China
7. ISO 3166-2:CN (ISO 3166-2 codes for the provinces of China)
8. 国务院人口普查办公室; 国家统计局人口和社会科技统计司, eds. (2012). 中国2010年人口普查分县资料. Beijing: China Statistics Press. ISBN 978-7-5037-6659-6.