Chinese Cultures---China's Top Ten

1.Giant Panda
Giant panda is one of the rarest animals in the world. Giant pandas live in remote high mountains in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu Provinces in west China and feed on bamboo. It is a species surviving from the Fourth Ice Age and known as "living fossil". Giant panda is regarded as the "national treasure" of China.






2. Gingko
The oldest tree in the world is China's gingko, which first appeared during the Jurassic Age some 160 million years ago.
3. Brahmaputra Canyon
The greatest canyon in the world is China's Brahmaputra Canyon, 504.6 kilometers long and 6,009 meters deep at its deepest spot. Its average depth is 2,268 meters.



4. Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Mount Everest
The highest plateau in the world is China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with an average height of 4,500 meters above sea level. The Himalayan Mountains are located in southern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its highest peak, Mount Everest (Mount Qomolangma) is 8,848.13 meters above sea level. It is the highest peak in the world.



5.Yongle Encyclopedia
The biggest and earliest encyclopedia in the world is the Yongle Encyclopedia complied between 1403-1408 in the Ming Dynasty by more than 2,000 scholars. It has 22,937 volumes.









6. Tian'anmen Square
The largest public square in the world is Tian'anmen Square in Beijing.







7. Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal
The earliest and longest man-made canal in the world is the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. The canal was first built in the 5th century BCE and was substantially extended twice during the Sui (581-618 A.D.) and Yuan (1206-1368 A.D.) dynasties. The 1,801-kilometer canal begins at Tongxian County in Beijing in the north and ends in Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province in the south.



8. Imperial Palace
The biggest and most complete ancient building complex is the former Imperial Palace (also known as the Forbidden City) in Beijing. It was imperial palace of both the Ming (1368-1644 A.D.) and Qing (1616-1911 A.D.) dynasties. It was first completed in 1420.




9. Great Wall
The longest man-made architecture in the world is the Great Wall in China. It climbs and descends on the ridges of mountains in northern China and has a total length of more than 6,700 km.




10. Chinese language
Chinese language is the most frequently used language in the world. About 1.2 billion people speak Chinese.