China

The Yangtze begins at the southern foothills of Geladandong Peak in the Tanggula Mountains of Qinhai Province. From there it stretches 6,300km past six provinces, including Tibet, Jiangsu and Shanghai, finally emptying into the East China Sea.

Along this sometimes muddy waterway are some of the oldest human sites and artifacts known. The Ba, for example, were an ancient civilization that developed here 4,000 years ago who buried their dead in coffins raised high among the cliffs. The Ba believed the higher you were buried, the better for your soul.

Tibet is not, of course, literally an island. But this ancient land has remained substantially untouched by the rush of modern social evolution. Though China has undergone several political, cultural and economic revolutions in the last hundred years, Tibet is still very much as it has been for hundreds of years.

One of the largest projects ever attempted, The Three Gorges dam spanning the Yangtze river in Sandouping has been under construction since 1994, having been in various planning stages for 50 years before that.

When completed in 2009, the dam will produce over 3% of China's electricity. That number may seem small, but given the size of the country, that small percentage is an enormous amount: 28 billion kilowatt hours annually from the one dam.

With a population over 1.2 billion, a land mass almost 9.5 million square kilometers and a culture over 5,000 years old, China is a vast country in every sense.

One of the world's largest politically unified areas (fourth after Russia, Canada and the U.S.), the country is bordered by a dozen others, both small and large. Several small Asian countries - such as Burma, Vietnam and Laos - are to the south, with a portion of the borders of India and Pakistan to the east. Large percentages of the borders of Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan lie to the north.

With over 3,000 years of recorded history maybe it should not be surprising that China has a museum containing nearly 3,000 pieces of inscribed stone. Those stones are called steles, which is a small monolith with carved writings or low-relief sculpture on one face. Like many things in China, these particular examples are extraordinary.

The museum is located in downtown Xi'an on Sanxue Street. The examples of Chinese calligraphy housed there have been lovingly gathered and cared for over many centuries. There are over 2,000 engraved tablets from the Han dynasty alone.

Picture pristine white, sandy beaches, a bright blue sky and a gentle breeze. Coconuts drop at your feet as the sand warms your feet while strolling along. No, you're not in Hawaii. You're in Hainan, the smallest province in China.

But, by Chinese standards, small has a slightly different meaning. Hainan covers over 35,000 square km and is home to over 7 million Chinese. At the southern end of the country, its natural beauty has long attracted visitors and fellow countrymen alike.

There are dozens of places to go and things to do in Hainan. Or, you can do nothing at all.

You can lounge on one of the many beautiful beaches in Sanya such as Tianya Haijia or Dadonghai. Take a walk around and enjoy some of the great seafood. You might visit one of the many shops. Shell carvings in many coastal towns around the world are just tourist trinkets. In Sanya, they're fine art.

One doesn't usually picture China and think of Europe. Yet there is one region of this Asian powerhouse that definitely fits that image: Macau. Sometimes called Macao, this peninsula less than 62km from Hong Kong is second only to that great city in its western aspect. For over 300 years, until just a few years ago, it was dominated by the Portuguese. Churches, museums and much more show that influence.

Most ancient civilizations buried their dead under the ground, a few burned them on pyres. But there are some that placed bodies of the dead in coffins and hung the coffins on a precipice.

Examples of the latter can be found in many locations throughout China. Some of those are placed on wooden beams projecting out from rock, others are on the rocks themselves. Still others are merely placed in caves high up a cliff face. Some were even suspended on wooden stakes above the ground or stuck into the cliff face.