Travel to China>>General Tourist Information

Administrative Divisions  Currency  Telephone Area Code  Languages Official Holidays In China Family Names Religions Civil Electrical Power Television System Time Difference                                 Current China Weather Information

ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS: China has 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities and 2 Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macao). The capital of China is Beijing (Area: 16,800 square kilometers; Population: 12.59 million)

CURRENCY: China Currency is called Renminbi (RMB). The popular unit of RMB is Yuan. The official exchange rate is based bank rate daily.  1 Yuan equals 10 JIAO, and 1 JIAO equals 10 FEN. (JIAO in Chinese  also called as KUAI, and JIAO is known as MAO.) Chinese currency is issued in the following denominations: one, two, five, ten, fifty and a hundred Yuan; one, two and five JIAO; and one, two and five Fen. More info....

TELEPHONE AREA CODE: Mainland China 86; Hong Kong 852; (Special Telephone Numbers: Police 110; Fire 119; Emergency 120.)  More info about the area code

LANGUAGES: The national language is Putonghua (the common speech) or Mandarin, which is one of the five working languages at the United Nations. Most of the 55 minority nationalities have their own languages. Cantonese is one of the local dialects of southern China. As a written language, Chinese has been used for 6,000 years.

OFFICIAL HOLIDAYS IN CHINA:

• New Year's Day: January 1 (There is one day off)

• Chinese Lunar New Year's Day is between January and February: The exact date varies, depending on Chinese Lunar Calendar. Chinese New Year's Day in 2007 was on February 18. The year 2006 is the Year of Pig in Chinese zodiac system. (There are 6 days off in most of the companies.)

• Labor Day: May 1;(There is one day off)

• National Day: October 1 (There are 6 days off in most of the companies. This is China Golden Week, a super peak period for traveling) )

The working days are Monday through Friday. Official hours are from 8:00am to 17:00pm with two hours for lunch.  

: Chinese family names came into being some 5,000 years ago. There are more than 5,000 family names, there are about 300 are popular. In Chinese names, family names comes first and given name second. For example, in the case of Li Xiaoping, LI  is the family name, Xiaoping the given name. The most popular Chinese family names are CHEN, HUANG, LI, LIU, WANG, ZHAO, ZHANG ...

RELIGIONS: China is a multi-religious country. Buddhism, Taoism and Islam are the three major religions. Catholicism and Protestantism have smaller but substantial followers too. 

CIVIL ELECTRICAL POWER: AC 220 V, 50 Hz (bathrooms of many luxury and medium-grade hotels may have 110-volt sockets).

TELEVISION SYSTEM: PAL (In addition to Chinese language TV broadcast, English and Japanese TV programs are available in many hotels via satellite relay. China Central Television Station (CCTV) and some local TV stations also provide English news and other programs in English.)

TIME DIFFERENCE
China has only one time zone, the standard time is BEIJING TIME. China does follow the daylight saving time system from mid-April to mid-September. When it is 12 Noon in Beijing (standard time), the standard time in different cities of the world is as follows: