Despite China's obvious and growing importance on the world stage, it is often and easily misunderstood. Indeed, there are many Chinas, as this comprehensive survey of contemporary China vividly illustrates. Now in a thoroughly revised and updated edition that offers the only sustained geography of the reform era, this book traces the changes occurring in this powerful and ancient nation across both time and space. Beginning with China's diverse landscapes and environments, and continuing through its formative history and tumultuous recent past, the authors present contemporary China as a product of both internal and external forces of past and present. They trace current and future successes and challenges while placing China in its international context as a massive, still-developing nation that must meet the needs of its 1.3 billion citizens while becoming a major regional and global player. Through clear prose and new, dynamic maps and photos, China's Geography illustrates and explains the great differences in economy and culture found throughout China's many regions.