North China, or Huabei () is a
geographical region of China, consisting of the provinces of
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
,
Tianjin
Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...
,
Hebei
Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...
,
Shanxi and
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
. Part of the larger region of
Northern China (''Beifang''), it lies north of the
Qinling–Huaihe Line
The Qinling–Huaihe Line () is a reference line used by geographers to distinguish between northern and southern China, corresponding roughly to the 33rd parallel. Qinling refers to the Qin Mountains, and Huaihe refers to the Huai River. Runn ...
,
with its heartland in the
North China Plain.
In modern times, the area has shifted in terms of socio-political and economic composition. Nowadays unique, embracing a North Chinese culture, it is influenced by
Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
,
Soviet systems of industry while preserving a traditional Chinese indigenous culture. Agriculturally, the region cultivates
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
.
Most inhabitants here speak variants of Northern Chinese languages such as
Mandarin, which includes
Beijing dialect
The Beijing dialect (), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, the official language in the People's Republic of ...
and its cousin variants. The Beijing dialect is largely the basis of
Standard Chinese (or Standard Mandarin), the official language of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
Jin Chinese
Jin (; ) is a proposed group of varieties of Chinese spoken by roughly 63 million people in northern China, including most of Shanxi province, much of central Inner Mongolia, and adjoining areas in Hebei, Henan, and Shaanxi provinces. The status ...
and
Mongolian are also widely spoken due to the political and cultural history of the area.
History
In prehistory, the region was home to the
Yangshao
The Yangshao culture (仰韶文化, pinyin: Yǎngsháo wénhuà) was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the middle reaches of the Yellow River in China from around 5000 BC to 3000 BC. The culture is named after the Yangsh ...
and
Longshan culture
The Longshan (or Lung-shan) culture, also sometimes referred to as the Black Pottery Culture, was a late Neolithic culture in the middle and lower Yellow River valley areas of northern China from about 3000 to 1900 BC. The first archaeological fi ...
s.
Peking man
Peking Man (''Homo erectus pekinensis'') is a subspecies of '' H. erectus'' which inhabited the Zhoukoudian Cave of northern China during the Middle Pleistocene. The first fossil, a tooth, was discovered in 1921, and the Zhoukoudian Cave has s ...
was found near modern-day Beijing.
The main agricultural lands of China lay in the area known as the
Central Plain, an area located bordered by the
Yangtze
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...
river to its south and the
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...
to its north. Further north of the Yellow River lies the
Gobi desert and steppe lands that extend west across
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...
. This region has long, harsh winters and suffers from
water scarcity
Water scarcity (closely related to water stress or water crisis) is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity: physical or economic water scarcity. Physical water scarcity is whe ...
. Despite these challenges, some forms of agriculture have been successful in this region, especially
animal husbandry, certainly of horse and camel, and possibly other types of animals. The crops ''
Panicum miliaceum
''Panicum miliaceum'' is a grain crop with many common names, including proso millet, broomcorn millet, common millet, hog millet, Kashfi millet, red millet, and white millet. Archaeobotanical evidence suggests millet was first domesticated abou ...
'' and ''
Setaria italica
Foxtail millet, scientific name ''Setaria italica'' (synonym ''Panicum italicum'' L.), is an annual grass grown for human food. It is the second-most widely planted species of millet, and the most grown millet species in Asia. The oldest evidenc ...
'', both types of
millet grain, are believed to be indigenous to northern China. ''Panicum miliaceum'' is known from the
Cishan culture
The Cishan culture (6500–5000 BC) was a Neolithic culture in northern China, on the eastern foothills of the Taihang Mountains. The Cishan culture was based on the farming of broomcorn millet, the cultivation of which on one site has been d ...
in
Hebei province
Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...
, recovered as
phytoliths from pits in
stratigraphic
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostra ...
sections.
Sediments from the pits have radiocarbon dates from 8500 to 7500 BCE. Archaeological evidence of charred grains found in early
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...
layers in Hebei province at
Nanzhuangtou
Nanzhuangtou (, ''Nánzhuāngtóu''), dated to 12,600–11,300 cal BPKuzmin, Yaroslav V"Chronology of the earliest pottery in East Asia: progress and pitfalls" ANTIQUITY-OXFORD- 80, no. 308 (2006): 362. or 11,500–11,000 cal BP,Xiaoyan Yang, Zhiwe ...
and Cishan has led scholars to revise the earliest dates associated with millet by about two millennia. Millet sites are concentrated along the boundaries of the
Loess and
Mongolian Plateau
The Mongolian Plateau is the part of the Central Asian Plateau lying between 37°46′-53°08′N and 87°40′-122°15′E and having an area of approximately . It is bounded by the Greater Hinggan Mountains in the east, the Yin Mountains to ...
, separated by a mountain chain from the
Huabei plain and the
Dongbei plain, North China's main
alluvial plains, located to the west. Millet cultivation was similarly situated relative to the
Qinling mountains at Dadiwan, and the
Yitai mountains at
Yuezhuang. Macrofossil evidence (charred grains of foxtail and broomcorn millet) has been recovered from
Xinglonggou in
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
,
Xinle in
Liaoning, Cishan in Hebei, and
Dadiwan in
Gansu, among other sites in Eastern and Central China.
Administrative divisions in the PRC
Cities with urban area over one million in population
: Provincial capitals in bold.
See also
*
Northern China
**
North China Plain
**
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
**
Northeast China
**
Northwest China
Northwest China () is a statistical region of China which includes the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia and the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai. It has an area of 3,107,900 km2.
The region is characterized by a (semi-)arid con ...
*
East China
East China () is a geographical and a loosely defined cultural region that covers the eastern coastal area of China.
A concept abolished in 1978, for economical purposes the region was defined from 1949 to 1961 by the Chinese Central Govern ...
References
{{Authority control
Regions of China