Chinasage : All about China
China sage's information will be of use to anyone keen to learn more about the world's upcoming nation. We cover all aspects of China in hundreds of detailed pages which include all sorts of cultural traditions , descriptions of every Chinese province and all the dynasties . We hope you find ChinaSage the home for your study of China.
You can also check out your knowledge of China with our Quiz section .
Traditions
Upcoming festivals 23rd Sep Autumnal Equinox (Lichun calendar) th Sep 祭孔大典 Confucius’s Birthday (Modern)See festivals…
Time in China
Beijing weather overcast clouds 20 ° C/ 68 ° FSep 15th 2025 at 11:38pm UTC
Data provided by OpenWeatherMap.org
Weather in China…
About Chinasage
We're building an extensive set of information all about China. We found other sites too detailed (such as Wikipedia) or just too old-fashioned. What we thought was needed was a carefully constructed site with strict editorial control so that everything is consistent and easy to navigate without clutter.
The name “Chinasage” came about because it can be read as either “China sage” (中 国 英 明 zhōng guó yīng míng ) or “China’s age” (中 国 时 代 zhōng guó shí dài ) , which promotes our new knowledge resource at a time when China has come of age in the world.
All the tea in China
Tea was the most important export that was weighed in the traditional Chinese unit of measurement called a 'catty'. It is known colloquially as the Chinese pound and is about 1.1pounds. In China it is known as the jin 斤 the word catty probably came from the Malay word. The modern weight is aligned to the metric system as exactly 500grams. The container for tea, a 'caddy', is believed to have been named after the measure.
Getting by in China There are many customs and traditions that you should know before traveling to China. Our customs page covers such things as giving gifts, banquets, sealing business deals and how to behave in public. A respect for age old traditions will impress your hosts who will appreciate your efforts to embrace the culture. Read more…
Three Character Classic The Three Character Classic (San Zi Jing 三 字 经 language primer for children who aspired to a scholarly life. It introduces the student to Chinese history, philosophy as well as the most common characters. It contains many exhortations for the student to study long and hard. Read more…
Imperial officials The prized job in dynastic China was as an Imperial official. As well as prosperity and a life of relative leisure an official received respect from the community. As anyone who passed the Imperial examinations could hope for such an appointment the posts were potentially open to all men. Read more…
Fish for good fortune Fish (渔 余 yú means 'surplus; abundance' and so a picture of a fish is a wish for prosperity. They are often eaten at Chinese New Year partly as a symbol for a wish for abundance in the coming year. Read more…
China's Silk Road The silk road from China leading to India and also through Central Asia to the Middle East was the longest trade route by land. It allowed early contact between the Roman Empire and China when silk was in great demand in Rome. The trade brought great prosperity to the cities of Central Asia such as Samarkand and Bactra. Read more…
All about the religions of China Untangling the religions of China is quite a challenge. There are three main belief systems (principally: Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism) that have co-existed in harmony for a very long time. Islam, Christianity and Ancestor veneration are also described in our comprehensive guide. Read more…
Chinese numbers Learning the numbers in Chinese is easier than in many other languages. In our complete guide to the numbers we include the traditions associated them. For example, do you know why 4 is unlucky but 8 lucky? Read more…
Cracking China book
Your A-Z key to understanding China
We are proud to announce a printed book all about China based loosely on this web site. It is a set of sixty topics in A-Z order covering everything from hair to kiwifruit, clapping to rhubarb, eunuchs to dragons. Buying a copy will help support Chinasage . Now available as a Kindle eBook for just $3.90.
Details... ➚
History
Dip into history Our history section has a page for each major dynasty, for the whole period from the time of myths and legends 5,000 years ago all the way through the Han, Tang, Song, Ming dynasties to the last great dynasty the Qing. Read more…
Han Dynasty After the trauma of the Qin dynasty it was the succeeding Han dynasty that established China as a stable nation. Many Imperial institutions inaugurated at this time lasted for the next two thousand years. Together with the Tang and Ming it is considered one of the great periods of Chinese history. Read more…
The Chinese Emperor The institution of Emperor , as head of the Chinese family of people, lasted for thousands of years and to some extent lives on with the Presidency. In China there has been great respect for the Emperor/President who in turn is expected to rule wisely with the best interests of his subjects in mind. To early European visitors to China the structure was considered close to the ideal form of society. Read more…
The Long March The epic tale of the struggle of thousands of soldiers over thousands of miles of challenging terrain has been held up as the chief heroic episode in the early days of the Communist party. It was during the Long March that Mao Zedong emerged as leader with his own vision for the future of China. Read more…
Dragons, master of rain and water The Chinese dragon is no fire-breathing monster, in China they are regarded as powerful but benevolent. As dragons are masters of rain, water and sea they need to be brought on your side if you want a good harvest, and so they need suitable offerings. The Dragon Boat festival is when everyone seeks to appease the dragon kings. Read more…
The South China Sea China lays claim to a vast area of sea as far south as northern Borneo. The sea contains two groups of islands: the Paracels and the Spratleys. China's claim is disputed by all the neighboring countries surrounding the South China Sea. The U.S. navy continues to provocatively sailed through the region and plans further naval maneuvers. Read more…
The building of China's railways The building of railways became a competitive scramble in the late 19th and early 20th century. Railways were seen as the key step to opening up inland China for trade. Britain, France, Germany, Japan and America all invested heavily in railway construction only for the the money to be lost in the following years of turmoil. Read more…
Geography
China's diverse geography China has deserts, mountains, lakes, rain forests and almost every other type of geographical feature you can think of. Our geography section has pages for each individual province as well as the great Yangzi and Yellow rivers. There are also pages on climate, cities, population, ethnic people, airports and universities. Read more…
Beijing Read all about Beijing the historic and bustling capital city of China. Our description includes a detailed map of the central area and travel guides to all the important attractions: Forbidden City; Summer Palace; Temple of Heaven; Beihai Park; Ming Tombs and Tiananmen Square . Read more…
Yellow River The valley of the mighty Yellow River was the cradle of Chinese civilization. The heavy load of silt that turns the waters 'yellow' creates rich farming land in the lower stretches. It is the second longest river in China after the Yangzi River . Read more…
Air travel in China Here we list all China's main airports , giving information on location, facilities and easy to use distance calculator so you can plan a complex itinerary around China. We also give useful visitor information about air transport in China. Read more…
Best China Sights In this page we give information on the top attractions all over China to tempt you to explore further. Each attraction is clearly marked on a map and further information on each place is readily available. From furthest Heilongjiang to Hong Kong and Lhasa to Shanghai we have selected the top travel highlights. Read more…
Imperial Examinations One of China's most important exports was the respect for scholarship and learning. China was the first nation to appoint on basis of what they knew rather than who they knew. Strict examinations were set up two thousand years ago and were the passport to a quieter life with a steady income. Read more…
All the tea in China
Tea was the most important export that was weighed in the traditional Chinese unit of measurement called a 'catty'. It is known colloquially as the Chinese pound and is about 1.1pounds. In China it is known as the jin 斤 the word catty probably came from the Malay word. The modern weight is aligned to the metric system as exactly 500grams. The container for tea, a 'caddy', is believed to have been named after the measure.
Language
The Chinese Language The Chinese language is rightly treasured as the country's greatest accomplishment. Our language section describes the language and its history. The section includes some introductory lessons and a guide to writing the characters. Read more…
China's Ancient Script The discovery of a huge number of 'oracle bones' has greatly added to the knowledge of the origins of China's written script. It pushes back the written language to at least 3,500 years ago. Careful study of the inscriptions is still revealing information about life in Shang dynasty times. Read more…
Chinese characters Some Chinese characters have their origin 10,000 years ago. The very old forms are simplified pictures of objects and animals. Later more abstract notions were represented in a simple way. Now there are a total of 200,000 distinct characters but fortunately only 2,000 are needed for everyday life. Read more…
A survey of Chinese literature As both the book and printing were invented in China it is not surprising that Chinese literature has a long and distinguished history. There are a number of very famous novels from before the time of Shakespeare including The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin. Read more…
Ancient province of Shandong The eastern province of Shandong sticks out into the Yellow Sea and has many historic attractions. It boasts the birthplace of Confucius and also the manufacture of Qingdao beer. The most sacred mountain in China - Taishan - has many ancient temples and memorials. Read more…
Bits and Pieces
We need your help to keep the Chinasage web site growing. We'd love to keep this web site completely free of advertisements like Wikipedia. Please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber for however little or much you can afford. We have been running this campaign for two months and have so far raised only 10% of our target. So please help… or else advertisements will make a comeback!
To read more and take out a subscription simply click on the Patreon Patreon
Many thanks, much appreciated.
Tue 20th Sep 2022Patreon pictures Thanks to the generous donations from Chinasage's Patreon ➚ sponsors we've just added quality photographs to many of our pages.
Although you can get images of all sorts of thing for free you do still have to pay for quality, particularly for specialist subjects. This time we have used 123rf for the new images who claim to have 200 million images to choose from. It takes a long time to make a choice and then they all need editing for usage, tagging and finally putting on the appropriate place on our hundreds of pages. We hope you will agree that they make a significant improvement.
New Year dragon, Shanghai Read more…
All the tea in China
Tea was the most important export that was weighed in the traditional Chinese unit of measurement called a 'catty'. It is known colloquially as the Chinese pound and is about 1.1pounds. In China it is known as the jin 斤 the word catty probably came from the Malay word. The modern weight is aligned to the metric system as exactly 500grams. The container for tea, a 'caddy', is believed to have been named after the measure.
Chinese Cities We have all the important statistics on all the major cities in China. Gives Population, Chinese name and shows map of location within China as well as calculating distances to any other Chinese city. Read more…
China's name Why do we call the country of China 'China'? It is not the name used by the Chinese people themselves. In fact there are a number of names used in the 'Middle Kingdom' that reflect the country's rich cultural and historic heritage. Read more…
Understanding the Date and Time in Chinese Telling the date and time is essential for travelers. In China the Arabic numbers are used for writing but the Chinese characters are used for reading. Read more…
China's rich range of wildlife China has a wide range of wild animals reflecting the great diversity of climate and geography - everything from tropical rain forest to arid sand desert. Many plants and animals can only be found in China. Read more…
Eating snakes
With periods of mass starvation only sixty years ago, when people resorted to eating grass and tree bark to keep alive, it is not surprising that the Chinese will have a go at eating just about anything. Snake meat is considered quite a delicacy and there are restaurants that specialize in serving many types of snake meat. Read more…
Stone Monkey' gazing over view from Huangshan (Yellow) Mountains in Anhui Province
Conventions
We use a consistent style for links within Chinasage. An internal link taking you to another page within our site is shown like this while a link to a page on any other web site is shown like this ➚ .
We use Chinese characters wherever appropriate. Most browsers should display both the characters and the pinyin correctly. We highlight any use of the older Wade Giles system for 'spelling' characters. Except where stated all characters are the modern simplified form used in the People's Republic rather than the traditional ones (pre-1970s). To help you learn Chinese characters many of the very common characters are highlighted thus: 中
Dates are given using the BCE/CE ➚ (Before Common Era and in Common Era) year convention rather than BC/AD. If a date is not followed by BCE or CE it should be taken as CE.
Authorship
All the text on the Chinasage web site is my own, I do not copy and paste from other web sites. I research each topic from a number of authoritative sources (mainly books ). The only exception to this are quotations and image credits. All text is our copyright and can not be used/copied without my permission. I am independent of any other company or government, the opinions expressed are my own. I do not receive funding or backing from any agency or organization .
Teacup Media (China History Podcast)
I am delighted to be able to promote links to Laszlo Montgomery's excellent Teacup Media ➚ series created over the last 14 years. Laszlo Montgomery ➚ has in depth knowledge of building commercial contacts with China over 30 years. The set of 290 podcasts totals 150 hours of audio commentary which covers every conceivable topic in Chinese history. Highly recommended.
Acknowledgments
I am extremely grateful to the many people who have put their photographs online for anyone to adapt and use. Without them this site would be very drab. If I am not using the image license correctly please let me know. I am grateful to Kim Dramer ➚ for permission to use her short videos all about Chinese culture and traditions. Patreon subscribers have supported the web site and allowed us to amongst other things purchase some quality images of China for use here. Some pages use Javascript ➚ to create special effects such as our airport table and calendar . I am grateful to the original authors for providing their code to be used and adapted by anyone else. The online Chinese dictionary uses the definition from the CC-CEDICT project ➚ for which I am grateful for a generous free license. Sound files kindly provided by shtooka.net ➚ under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.
Feel free to contact Chinasage to point out any errors, omissions or suggestions on how to improve this web site.
If you would like to support my work and keep us independent become a Patreon or make a Donation via Paypal.
