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China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity.
In 1949, when major combat ended in the Chinese Civil War, two political entities emerged having the term "China" in their names:
The People's Republic of China (PRC), established in 1949, commonly known as China, has control over mainland China and the largely self-governing territories of Hong Kong (since 1997) and Macau (since 1999). The Republic of China (ROC) established in 1912 on mainland China, now commonly known as Taiwan, has control over the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu.
China is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations. In the 19th and 20th century, imperialism, wars and civil wars have damaged the country and its economy. In the 1950s, change to economic policies in the Republic of China (Taiwan) transformed the island into a technology-oriented industrialized developed economy. It became known as one of the Four Asian Tigers along with Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore. In mainland China, in the 1970s, reforms known as the Four Modernizations modernized the agriculture, industry, technology and defense, eventually making the PRC one of the major powers. China is viewed as the source of many major inventions. It has also one of the world's oldest written language systems.
Historically, China's cultural sphere has extended across East Asia as a whole, with Chinese religion, customs, and writing systems being adopted to varying degrees by neighbors such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The first evidence of human presence in the region was found at the Zhoukoudian cave. It is one of the first known specimens of Homo erectus, now commonly known as the Peking Man, estimated to have lived from 300,000 to 780,000 years ago.
Transportation in the People's Republic of China has experienced major growth and expansion since 1949 and especially since the early 1980s. Airports, roads, and railway construction will provide a massive employment boost in China over the next decade.
Rail, which is the primary mode of transportation, has doubled in length since the mid-twentieth century, and an extensive network provides service to the entire nation. The larger cities have metro systems in operation, under construction, or in the planning stage. The highway and road system also has gone through rapid expansion, resulting in a rapid increase of motor vehicle use throughout China. Although China's transportation system comprises a vast network of transport nodes across its huge territory, the nodes tend to concentrate in the more economically developed coastal areas and inland cities along major rivers.
The physical state and comprehensiveness of China's transportation infrastructure tend to vary widely by geography. While remote, rural areas still largely depend on non-mechanized means of transportation, a modern maglev train system was built in China to connect the city center of Shanghai with its international airport.
Much of contemporary China's transportation systems have been built since the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949. Prior to 1950, there were only 21,800 km of railway lines. In 2007, the railway network has since been expanded to 78,000 km. Rail travel remained the most popular form of transport, although air travel has also experienced significant growth since the late 1990s. The government-led effort — that began in the 1990s — to connect the country by expressways via the "National Trunk Highway System" has expanded the network to more than 65,000 km by the end of 2009 making China's the second longest expressway network in the world (after the United States).