China is one of the countries located in the continent of Asia. The country forms a major part of the eastern region of the continent, and is a very old civilization as well as being a cultural region. Depending on the way one looks at it, China is either a multinational or a national entity.

There are a lot of ancient civilizations which are still living in major areas of the world, and the Chinese people are on of those civilizations. The Chinese civilization has been around for a very long period of time and has been continuous. The culture and the states of the country have been in existence for more than six millennia. The written language system which is used here has the status of being the longest and most continuously used writing system of the world. Another way in which China has played a major part in shaping the world is by its major inventions. Joseph Needham, who was a British bio chemist and a scholar, said that there were four inventions which were the greatest inventions of Ancient China. They were gunpowder, paper, printing, and the compass. The cultural scope of China has played a major part in influencing the whole of East Asia. The neighbors of China, such as Vietnam, Korea, and Japan have adopted to certain degrees the writing system, customs, and the religion of the country.

There were two political entities which were formed when the Chinese Civil War was brought to a conclusion, and both of them were using the name China. They were The Republic of China, which is also known as Taiwan and consists of the island of Taiwan as well as some other islands situated nearby, and the other was the People’s Republic of China, which is also known as simply China, and consists of Hong Kong, Macau, and mainland China.