Obama Visits China

President Barack Obama recently wrapped up a week-long trip to Asia that included a two-and-a-half day stop in China. Among many other things, he met with President Hu Jintao and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. He also visited China’s Great Wall.

According to National Geographic, the Great Wall is one of the New Seven World Wonders. The wall was built along China’s northern border to protect the country from invading tribes. The Great Wall is the world’s longest human-made structure, measuring about 4,000 miles! The wall, which is made mostly of stone, was built, rebuilt and MAINTAINED between the fifth century and the 16th century.

It is unclear when modern humans first lived in China. The earliest archaeological evidence comes from 67,000 years ago, but some scientists believe that other evidence found from between 16,000 and 18,000 years ago is a more likely indicator of when people were first living in China. The country has gone through several forms of government—it is currently communist—and many interesting periods of time, called dynasties, over the years. China also played a major role in ancient discoveries that we still use today! Ancient China brought us paper and papermaking, woodblock printing and moveable type printing, gunpowder, toilet paper, the propeller, the cannon and much more.

Today, China is home to about 1.3 billion people and has an area slightly smaller than the United States. There are 634 million cellular phones in use in China!

The country is officially called the People’s Republic of China. Locally, the country is known as Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo, or Zhongguo for short. China’s main agricultural products are: rice, wheat, potatoes, corn, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, apples, cotton, pork and fish.

China hosted the 2008 Olympics, welcoming a total of 11,028 athletes who competed in 28 sports.