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China
Region: Eastern Asia
Population (2006)1: 1,330,044,605 Land Area2: 3,500,000 Life Expectancy3: 71.6 Per capita income3: 5,003 |
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Indexes4
Largest Religious Groups
History
For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. After 1978, his successor DENG Xiaoping and other leaders focused on market-oriented economic development and by 2000 output had quadrupled. For much of the population, living standards have improved dramatically and the room for personal choice has expanded, yet political controls remain tight.
Sources
Note: All country profiles, maps, and flags are taken from The World Factbook, 2005.
1. The U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base (IDB) is a computerized data bank containing statistical tables of demographic data for 228 countries and areas of the world.
2. The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom report is submitted to Congress annually by the Department of State in compliance with Section 102(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. This report supplements the most recent Human Rights Reports by providing additional detailed information with respect to matters involving international religious freedom. It includes individual country chapters on the status of religious freedom worldwide. A dataset with these and the other international measures highlighted on the country pages can be downloaded from this website. These State Department reports are open source.
3. The United Nations Human Development Reports provide data and statistical analysis in various areas of human development. The Human Development Report (HDR) presents two types of statistics: the human development indicator tables, which provide a global assessment of country achievements in different areas of human development, and thematic statistical analysis. A dataset with these and the other international measures highlighted on the country pages can be downloaded from this website. Used with permission.
4. The article by Brian Grim and Roger Finke describes the coding of the U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom reports. This variable was coded from the reports for 2005. Under their supervision, additional years of the reports are currently being coded by researchers at the Association of Religion Data Archives. Smaller countries not covered by the State Department Reports were coded by researchers at the World Christian Database under the supervision of Todd Johnson, drawing on information from Oxford Press’s World Christian Encyclopedia. A dataset with these and the other international measures highlighted on the country pages can be downloaded from this website. Used with permission.
