Earth

For descriptions of the Earth in (science) fiction, see Earth in fiction.
. See Spaceship Earth and Gaia theory.. Other areas of technological study:. Earth has also been described as a massive spaceship, with a life support system that requires maintenance, or as having a biosphere that forms one large organism.
. A photo taken of Earth by Voyager 1 inspired Carl Sagan to describe the planet as a "Pale Blue Dot". In addition to the cultural innovations mentioned above, technological inventions from China include:.

The technological developments of the latter half of the 20th century are widely considered to have altered the public's perception of the Earth. Calligraphy, sushi, and bonsai are all millennia-old art that later spread to Japan and Korea. Surveying, the determination of locations and distances, and to a somewhat lesser extent navigation, the determination of position and direction, have developed alongside cartography and geography, providing and suitably quantifying the requisite information. See Chinese painting for more details. Cartography, the study and practice of mapmaking, and vicariously geography, have historically been the disciplines devoted to depicting the Earth. The great variation and beauty in the Chinese landscape is often the inspiration for great works of Chinese art. Prior to the introduction of space flight, this belief was countered with deductions based on observations of the secondary effects of the Earth's shape and parallels drawn with the shape of other planets. Because of its association with elite scholar-official bosses, it later on became commercialized, where works by famous artists became prized possessions.

In the past there were varying levels of belief in a flat Earth because of this, but ancient Greek philosophers and, in the Middle Ages, thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas knew that the Earth was a sphere. Calligraphy is a major art-form in China, above that of painting and music. Since Earth is rather large, it is not immediately obvious to the naked eye viewing from the surface that it is an oblate spheroid, bulging slightly at the equator and slightly flattened at the poles. Chinese characters have had many variants and styles throughout the Chinese history, and were "simplified" in the mid-20th century on mainland China. In Norse mythology, the Earth goddess Jord was the mother of Thor and the daughter of Annar. The sheng is the basis for several Western free-reed instruments. As the patroness of fertility, her element is Earth. The Chinese have created numerous musical instruments, such as the zheng, xiao, and erhu, that have spread throughout East and Southeast Asia, and especially areas under its influence.

The Chinese Earth goddess Hu-Tu is similar to Gaia, the deification of the Earth. (See List of Chinese authors, and List of Chinese language poets). Earth has often been personified as a deity, in particular a goddess (see Gaia and Mother Earth). Some classical scholars, however, were noted for their daring depictions of lives of the common people, often to the displeasure of authorities. The United Nations is primarily an international discussion forum with only limited ability to pass and enforce laws. Chinese philosophers, writers, and poets have been, for the most part, highly respected, and played a key role in preserving and promoting the culture of the empire. There is a worldwide general international organization, the United Nations. Those who passed the highest level of the exam became elite scholar-officials known as jinshi, a highly esteemed socio-economic position.

Independent sovereign nations claim all of the land surface except for some segments of Antarctica. Imperial examinations required applicants to write essays and demonstrate mastery of the Confucian classics. Earth does not have a sovereign government with planet-wide authority. Nevertheless it was a system distinct from the European system of blood nobility. There are 267 administrative divisions, including nations, dependent areas, other, and miscellaneous entries. This led to a meritocracy, though in practice this was possible only among those who were not female or too poor to afford test preparation, as doing well still required tutorship. The southernmost is the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, in Antarctica, almost exactly at the South Pole. For centuries, opportunity for economic and social advancement in China could be provided by high performance on the imperial examinations.

The northernmost settlement in the world is Alert, Ellesmere Island, Canada. Tens of thousands of ancient written documents are still extant and more, from oracle bones to Qing edicts, are discovered each day. See also space colonization. Members of royalty frequently participated in these discussions. Out of those only twelve humans have ever walked on a world other than Earth: the men of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17, who walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Academies of scholars sponsored by the empire were formed to comment on these works in both printed and written form. In total, about 400 people have been outside Earth (in space) as of 2004. Before that, manuscripts of the Classics and religious texts (mainly Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist) were manually written by ink brush (previously scratching shells) and distributed.

During the exchange there are more, and sometimes others are also traveling briefly above the atmosphere. Chinese literature has a long and prolific continuous history, in part because of the development of printmaking during the Song Dynasty. The station crew is replaced with new personnel every six months. They regularly protest against their suppression, both domestically and internationally. Two humans are presently in orbit around Earth on board the International Space Station. The Falun Gong says that it has approximately 70-100 million followers, which is a bit higher than estimates by outside groups, though exact numbers are unknown. Coastal areas constitute the highest density. The Falun Gong itself denies that it is a cult or a religion.

It is estimated that only 1/8th of the surface of the Earth is suitable for humans to live on - 3/4 is covered by oceans, and half of the landmass is unsuitable, being desert, high mountain, etc. In recent years, Falun Gong, a spiritual practice drawing upon Buddhism and Taoism, has attracted great controversy after the government of the People's Republic of China labeled it an evil cult and began an attempt to eradicate it. Nearly all humans currently reside on Earth: 6,411,000,000 inhabitants (January 5, 2005 est.). Historically, Taoism and Buddhism have been the dominant religions of Chinese society, and continue to be so in Chinese societies outside direct PRC control. Most of the growth is expected to take place in developing nations. While the People's Republic of China is officially atheist it does allow religion under strict supervision. On 25 February 2005 the United Nations Population Division issued revised estimates and projected that the world's population will reach 7 billion by 2013 and swell to 9.1 billion in 2050. The major religions of China are:.

Long-term climate alteration due to enhancement of the greenhouse effect by human industrial carbon dioxide emissions is an increasing concern, the focus of intense study and debate. Other than Standard Mandarin, spoken variants are usually not written; the exception is Standard Cantonese, which is sometimes written as Written Cantonese in informal contexts. Large areas are subject to man-made pollution of the air and water, acid rain and toxic substances, loss of vegetation (overgrazing, deforestation, desertification), loss of wildlife, species extinction, soil degradation, soil depletion, erosion, and introduction of invasive species. Classical Chinese is no longer the predominant form of written Chinese, though it continues to be a part of high school curricula and is hence intelligible to some degree to many Chinese people. Many places are subject to earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, sinkholes, floods, droughts, and other calamities and disasters. In addition, another, more ancient written standard, Classical Chinese, was used for writing Chinese by the literati for thousands of years before the 20th Century. Large areas are subject to extreme weather such as (tropical cyclones), hurricanes, or typhoons that dominate life in those areas. The various spoken varieties of Chinese share a common written standard, "Vernacular Chinese" or "baihua", which has been used since the early 20th Century and is based on Standard Mandarin, the standard spoken language, in grammar and vocabulary.

Irrigated land: 2,481,250 km² (1993 est.). The Han speak several mutually unintelligible tongues, classified by modern linguists as being separate languages, but regarded within the Chinese languages as "dialects" or "local languages" (topolects) within a single Chinese language (the word for "area languages" has an implication of dialect rather than a separate language, although on the basis of use, these topolects can be found to be separate and mutually unintelligible, and are so classified by many linguists). The exploitation of non-renewable resources by human civilization has become a subject of significant controversy in modern environmentalism movements. As a response to the problems this is causing, the government of the PRC has enacted a birth control policy, commonly known as the One-child policy. Some of these resources, such as mineral fuels, are difficult to replenish on a short time scale, called non-renewable resources. The lack of birth control and promotion of population growth during the rule of Mao Zedong resulted in a demographic explosion, culminating in over 1.3 billion people today. Elevation extremes: (measured relative to sea level). With the global human population currently estimated at about 6.4 billion, China is home to approximately 20%, or one-fifth of the world's population.

Ocean currents, particularly the spectacular thermohaline circulation which distributes heat energy from the equatorial oceans to the polar regions, are important determinators of climate. China's overall population is 1.3 billion. Precipitation patterns vary widely, ranging from several metres of water per year to less than a millimetre. The government of the People's Republic of China now officially recognizes a total of 56 ethnic groups, of which the largest is the Han Chinese. Two large areas of polar climates separated by two rather narrow temperate zones from a wide equatorial band of tropical to subtropical climates. The term Zhonghua Minzu is sometimes used to describe a notion of a "Chinese nationality" transcending ethnic divisions. Terrestrial biomes lying within the Arctic and Antarctic Circles are relatively barren of plant and animal life, while most of the more populous biomes lie near the Equator. Many times in the past millenia many foreign groups have, in turn, shaped Han language and culture, for example the queue is a pig tail hairstyle strictly enforced by the Manchurians on the Han populace.

On land, biomes are separated primarily by latitude. Several previously distinct ethnic groups have been Sinicized into the Han, causing its population to increase dramatically; at the same time, many within the Han identity have maintained distinct linguistic and cultural traditions, though still identifying as Han. The biosphere is divided into a number of biomes, inhabited by broadly similar flora and fauna. Throughout history, many ethnic groups have been assimilated into neighbouring ethnicities or disappeared without a trace. This biosphere is generally believed to have begun evolving about 3.5 billion (3.5×10⁹) years ago. In terms of numbers, however, the pre-eminent ethnic group in China is the Han, which is a group so diverse in its culture and language that some conceive of it as a larger overarching group bringing together many smaller, distinct ethnic groups sharing common traits in language and culture. The planet's lifeforms are sometimes said to form a "biosphere". Over a hundred ethnic groups have existed in China.

Earth is the only place in the universe where life is absolutely known to exist, and some scientists believe that biospheres might be rare. In the Liaodong and Shandong Peninsulas, there are basaltic plateaux. Maritime claims: see United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Groups of volcanic cones occur in the Great Plain of north China. Coastline: 356,000 km. The Palaeozoic formations of China, excepting only the upper part of the Carboniferous system, are marine, while the Mesozoic and Tertiary deposits are estuarine and freshwater or else of terrestrial origin. Land boundaries: the land boundaries in the world total 251,480 km (not counting shared boundaries twice). The southern zone (within which lies Guangzhou and other southern provinces) has a generally subtropical climate.

Area:. The central zone (within which Shanghai is situated) has a generally temperate climate. Continents, Oceans. The northern zone (within which lies Beijing) has a climate with winters of Arctic severity. Biggest geographic subdivision. The climate of China varies greatly. Time Zones, Coordinates. During many dynasties, the southwestern border of China has been the high mountains and deep valleys of Yunnan, which separate modern China from Burma, Laos and Vietnam.

Map references:. Dust blows all the way to southern China, Taiwan, and has even been measured on the West Coast of the United States. Earth also has at least one co-orbital asteroid, 3753 Cruithne. Due to a prolonged drought and perhaps poor agricultural practices, dust storms have become usual in the spring in China. This hypothesis explains (among other things) the Moon's relative lack of iron and volatile elements, and the fact that its composition is nearly identical to that of the Earth's crust. The northwest also has high plateaus among more arid desert landscapes such as the Takla-Makan and the Gobi Desert, which has been expanding. The most widely accepted theory of the Moon's origin, the giant impact theory, states that it was formed from the collision of a Mars-size protoplanet with the early Earth. To the west, the north has a great alluvial plain, and the south has a vast calcareous tableland traversed by hill ranges of moderate elevation, with the Himalayas, containing the highest point Mount Everest.

This allows total eclipses and annular eclipses to occur on Earth. In the east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea are found extensive and densely populated alluvial plains; the shore of the South China Sea is more mountainous and southern China is dominated by hill country and lower mountain ranges. The Moon is just far enough away to have, when seen from Earth, very nearly the same apparent angular size as the Sun (the Sun is 400 times larger, but the Moon is 400 times closer). Most of China's arable lands lie along the two major rivers, the Yangtze and the Huang He, and each are the centers around which are founded China's major ancient civilizations. This remains a controversial subject, however, and further studies of Mars—which shares Earth's rotation period and axial tilt, but not its large moon or liquid core—may provide additional insight. As a result, principal rivers flow from west to east, including the Yangtze (central), the Huang He (central-east), and the Amur (northeast), and sometimes toward the south (including the Pearl River, Mekong River, and Brahmaputra), with most Chinese rivers emptying into the Pacific. Planetary scientists who have studied the effect claim that this might kill all large animal and higher plant life. China is composed of a vast variety of highly different landscapes, with mostly plateaus and mountains in the west, and lower lands on the east.

One pole would be pointed directly toward the Sun during summer and directly away during winter. China is also traditionally thought of as comprising North China (北方) and South China (南方), the geographic boundary between which north and south is largely generalized as Huai River (淮河) and Qinling Mountains (秦嶺). If Earth's axis of rotation were to approach the plane of the ecliptic, extremely severe weather could result, as this would make seasonal differences extreme. China proper is generally thought to be bounded by the Great Wall and the edge of the Tibetan Plateau; Manchuria and Inner Mongolia are found to the north of the Great Wall of China, and the boundary between them can either be taken as the present border between Inner Mongolia and the northeast Chinese provinces, or the more historic border of the World War II-era puppet state of Manchukuo; Xinjiang's borders correspond to today's administrative Xinjiang; and historic Tibet is conceived as occupying all of the Tibetan Plateau. Some theorists believe that, without this stabilization against the torques applied by the Sun and planets to the Earth's equatorial bulge, the rotational axis might be chaotically unstable, as it appears to be with Mars. These territories are separated by borders that are vague at best, and do not correspond well to contemporary political divisions. Paleontological evidence and computer simulations show that Earth's axial tilt is stabilised by tidal interactions with the Moon. The Manchu-established Qing Dynasty and its successors, the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China cemented the incorporation of these territories into China.

The Moon may dramatically affect the development of life by taming the weather. Various dynasties also exhibited expansionism by engaging in incursions into peripheral territories like Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Tibet. As the Moon orbits Earth, different parts of its face are illuminated by the Sun, leading to the lunar phases: The dark part of the face is separated from the light part by the solar terminator. Historically, most Chinese dynasties were based in the historical heartlands of China, known as China proper. As a result, it always presents the same face to the planet. Recent divisions also include prefecture-level cities, county-level cities, towns and townships (see below for examples). The same effect on the Moon has led to its tidal locking: Its rotation period is the same as the time it takes to orbit the Earth. Below that, there have been prefectures, subprefectures, departments, commanderies, districts, and counties.

The gravitational attraction between the Earth and Moon cause the tides on Earth. Top levels included circuits and provinces. The natural satellites orbiting other planets are called "moons", after Earth's Moon. Historically, top-level political divisions of China have altered as the administration changed. With the exception of Pluto's Charon, it is the largest moon in the Solar system relative to the size of its planet. Since then, the de jure sovereignty of Taiwan has been under dispute between the PRC, and the now democratic ROC and Taiwan independence supporters. The Moon, sometimes called 'Luna', is a relatively large terrestrial planet-like satellite, whose diameter is about one-quarter of the Earth's. At the end of the second Sino-Japanese War in 1945, Japan relinquished the sovereignty of the island in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and the Republic of China took over.

. Taiwan was subsequently ceded to Japan after the first Sino-Japanese War in 1895. The Earth is sometimes referred to as the Third Planet from the Sun because, of the nine planets of our solar system, Earth is the third closest planet to the sun. In 1683 after the surrender of the Kingdom of Tungning established by Koxinga, Taiwan including the Pescadores became a part of the Qing Empire, originally as one prefecture, then two, and later a province. For other eras, see precession and Milankovitch cycles. The Qing Empire reduced the territorial value of the Great Wall of China as a barrier of China proper after they merged their homeland (Manchuria) north of the wall with China proper south of it. In modern times, Earth's perihelion is always about January 3, and aphelion is about July 4 (near the winter and summer solstices, which are on about December 21 and June 21, respectively). Since the end of the 19th century, China has tried to reinterpret this relationship as suzerainty or suzerainty-dependency, but this no longer has any real conception in modern international political theories.

Also, the rotational velocity varies, a phenomenon known as length of day variation. The Chinese thought that the barbarians attached themselves to the virtue of the Emperor, while the foreign governments sometimes disagreed. The polar motion is quasi-periodic, containing an annual component and a component with a 14-month period called the Chandler wobble. Along with provincial administrators, some foreign monarchs sent envoys to offer gifts to the Emperor of China and the Emperor returned compliments to them. In a reference frame attached to the solid body of the Earth, its rotation is also slightly irregular due to polar motion. The Qing Dynasty included parts of modern Russian Far East and Central Asia (west of Xinjiang). These motions are caused by the differential attraction of Sun and Moon on the Earth's equatorial bulge, due to its oblateness. Since then, the territory has expanded outward in all directions, and was largest during the Tang, Yuan, and Qing dynasties.

In an inertial reference frame, the Earth's axis undergoes a slow precessional motion with a period of some 25,800 years, as well as a nutation with a main period of 18.6 years. The Zhou Dynasty, which preceded the unification of China by Shi Huangdi, was originally the region around the Yellow River. The Hill sphere (sphere of influence) of the Earth is about 1.5 Gm (930 thousand miles) in radius, within which one natural satellite (the Moon) comfortably orbits. One of the oldest and most prominent of them, the China Support Network (CSN), was founded in 1989 by a group of concerned Americans and Chinese activists in response to Tiananmen Square. The orbital and axial planes are not precisely aligned: Earth's axis is tilted some 23.5 degrees against the Earth-Sun plane (which causes the seasons); and the Earth-Moon plane is tilted about 5 degrees against the Earth-Sun plane (otherwise there would be an eclipse every month). aim to bring democratic reform to China and relentlessly protest human rights violations that occur in the People's Republic of China. Viewed from Earth's north pole, the motion of Earth, its moon and their axial rotations are all counterclockwise. A number of NGOs based in the U.S.

When combined with the Earth-Moon system's common revolution around the Sun, the period of the synodic month, from new moon to new moon, is 29.53 days. Today, however, there is much more freedom in intellectual thought in non-political areas and propaganda, while still continuing, has lessened. Earth has one natural satellite, the Moon, which revolves with the Earth around a common barycenter, from fixed star to fixed star, every 27.32 days. The attempted eradication of the Falun Gong movement is also held by its supporters to be motivated by fear of Falun Gong's growing influence. The orbital speed of the Earth averages about 30 km/s (108,000 km/h), which is enough to cover one Earth diameter (~12,700 km) in 7 minutes, and one distance to the Moon (384,000 km) in 4 hours. In 1989, a popular demonstration held in Beijing at Tiananmen Square was violently put to an end by the CPC. From Earth, this gives an apparent movement of the Sun with respect to the stars at a rate of about 1 °/day, i.e., a Sun or Moon diameter every 12 hours, eastward. Examples of this include the jailing of political opponents and journalists, general control of the press, regulation of religions and other non-party organizations, censorship of the press, literature and film, and suppression of independence/secessionist movements.

Earth orbits the Sun every 365.2564 mean solar days (1 sidereal year). Nonetheless, the Communist Party still has absolute control over political aspects of society, and it continuously seeks to eradicate threats to its rule. From Earth the main apparent motion of celestial bodies in the sky (except meteors which are within the atmosphere and low-orbiting satellites) is the movement to the west at a rate of 15 °/h = 15'/min, i.e., a Sun or Moon diameter every two minutes. However, post-1978 reforms have led to the relaxation, in varying degrees, of party control over many areas of society. It takes the Earth 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.091 seconds (1 sidereal day) to rotate around the axis connecting the north pole and the south pole. From the beginning, the PRC has been a dictatorial one-party state under the Communist Party.
. Meanwhile, Mao Zedong, the leader of the communists, proclaimed the People's Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949 in Beijing, saying China had stood up.

The geologic component layers of the Earth are located at the following depths below surface:. more environmentally friendly) and Blues are generally regarded as more conservative.
. However, Greens are generally more liberal (i.e.
. formal independence issue.
. But rather than the usual conservative-liberal policy distinctions that are the hallmarks of most democracies around the world, the main cleavage in ROC politics is the unification with China in the long-run vs.

The biosphere is a tiny layer in this composition and is usually not considered part of the physical layers of the Earth. Today, the political scene in the ROC is vibrant, with active participation by all sectors of society. Its components are the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the crust, the mantle, and its core. Beginning in the late 1970s, Taiwan began the implementation of full, multi-party, representative democracy in the territories still under ROC control (i.e., Taiwan Province, Taipei, Kaohsiung and some offshore islands of Fujian province). The Earth consists of several atmospheric, hydrologic, and mainly geologic layers. By early 1950, the CPC had defeated the Kuomintang on the mainland, and the ROC government retreated to the island of Taiwan. . In 1947, constitutional rule was established, but because of the ongoing Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China (CPC), many provisions of the 1947 ROC constitution were never put into actual practice on the mainland.

Although a link to such Indo-European languages has not been proved, several Semitic languages have similar-sounding words for Earth: aard in Arabic, irtsitu in Akkadian, araa in Aramaic, erets in Phoenician (which appears in the Mesha Stele), and ארץ (arets, or erets when followed by a noun modifier) in Hebrew. Ironically, both the Kuomintang and the CCP have heavy Leninist influences. tierra in Spanish). Effectively, political tutelage meant one-party rule by the Kuomintang with heavy Leninist influences. Taking into account metathesis, we can find cognates of the word Earth in the Latin terra and in the modern Romance languages (i.e. In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang, under Chiang Kai-shek, was able to reunify the country under its own control, moving the nation's capital to Nanjing and implementing "political tutelage", an intermediate stage of political development outlined in Sun Yat-sen's program for transforming China into a modern, democratic state. It is derived from Old English eorðe. Warlords in various regions exercised actual control over their respective territories.

The root also has cognates in extinct languages such as ertha in Old Saxon and ert (meaning 'ground') in Middle Irish. After Yuan's downfall, China was politically fragmented, with an internationally-recognized, but virtually powerless, national government seated in Beijing (thus failing to fit the definition of a state). Examples in modern tongues include aarde in Dutch, Erde in German and arde in Arabic. Before long, Yuan attempted to have himself proclaimed emperor of a new dynasty; however, he died soon of natural causes before fully taking power over all of the Chinese empire. The English word Earth has cognates in many modern as well as defunct - including ancient - languages. However, Yuan Shikai, a former Qing general who had defected to the revolutionary cause, soon forced Sun to step aside and took the presidency for himself (formally it was a negotiation where Sun agreed to step aside for what was then perceived as a strong reformer, Yuan). Besides words derived from Terra, such as terrestrial, terms that refer to the Earth include tellur- (telluric, tellurion, from the goddess Terra's alternate name, Tellūs) and geo- (geography, geocentric, geothermal; from the Greek goddess Gaia). Sun Yat-sen of the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Party), was proclaimed provisional president of the republic.

Its astronomical symbol consists of a circled cross, representing a meridian and the equator; a variant puts the cross atop the circle (Unicode: ⊕ or ♁). On January 1, 1912, the Republic of China (ROC) was established, signaling the end of the Manchu-dominated Qing Empire. Earth is sometimes known as Terra in some languages, after the Roman goddess Terra. Chinese was the official language, though periods of Mongol and Manchu conquest saw the arrival of Mongol and Manchu as alternate official languages. Scientific evidence indicates that the planet formed around 4.57 billion (4.57×10⁹) years ago, and shortly thereafter (4.533 billion years ago) acquired its single natural satellite, the Moon. Luoyang, Chang'an (today's Xi'an), Nanjing, and Beijing are the four cities most commonly designated as capitals of China over the course of history. It is the largest of the solar system's terrestrial planets, and the only planetary body that modern science confirms as harboring life. (see section "Geography, Political" below for examples),.

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Political relations with dependencies (tributary kingdoms) were maintained by international marriages, military aids, treaties, and gifts. Other: 30% (1993 est.). This happened especially since the emperor often was many layers of power removed from the outside world, making him susceptible to manipulation because his sources for information could manipulate that information causing him to make incorrect decisions, especially when their age at becoming emperor often had no bottom limit, with rule passing heriditarily but also given "in trust" to another relative. Urban areas: 1.5%. Political power sometimes fell into the hands of powerful officials, eunuchs, or imperial relatives, often at the expense of a child heriditary emperor. Forests and woodland: 32%. The emperor also consulted civil and martial ministers, especially the prime minister.

Permanent pastures: 26%. However the emperor had ultimate, supreme, and unquestionable authority as the political and religious leader of China. Permanent crops: 1%. The territory varied with several expansions and contractions depending on the strength of each emperor and dynasty. Arable land: 10%. After the Qin, China experienced about 13 more dynasties, many of which continued the extensive system of kingdoms, dukedoms, earldoms, and marquisates. The land-based ecosystem depends upon topsoil and fresh water, and the oceanic ecosystem depends upon dissolved nutrients washed down from the land. This ended with the Qin Dynasty unification, during which the office of the emperor was set up, and a system of bureaucratic administration established.

Earth's biosphere produces many useful biological products, including (but far from limited to) food, wood, pharmaceuticals, oxygen, and the recycling of many organic wastes. This is also the time of the beginnings of Confucian philosophy and that of many other philosophies that greatly influenced Chinese philosophy-political thought. These ore bodies form concentrated sources for many metals and other useful elements. Although there was a central king who held nominal power, and powerful hegemons sometimes held considerable influence, each state was ruled as an independent political entity. Mineral ore bodies have been formed in Earth's crust by the action of erosion and plate tectonics. The Chinese civilization consisted of a patchwork of several states, each ruled by a king (王), duke (公), marquess (侯), or earl (伯). These deposits are used by humans both for energy production and as feedstock for chemical production. Before unification by the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC, "China" did not exist as a coherent entity.

Earth's crust contains large deposits of fossil fuels: (coal, petroleum, natural gas, methane clathrate). Another is a partial skeleton from Minatogawa being only 18,000 years old. Highest point: Mount Everest 8,844 m (2005 est.). The earliest evidence examples of fully modern humans in China come from Liujiang, China where a cranium dates 67,000 years BCE. Lowest point overall: Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean −10,924 m [1]. This model is known as Mitochondrial Eve Hypothesis. Lowest point on land: Dead Sea −417 m. However it is now more widely accepted that all modern humans genetically share a direct ancestor, a female nicknamed "Mitochondrial Eve" from Eastern Africa 150,000 years BCE.

42 nations and other areas are completely landlocked (see list of landlocked countries). sapiens having archaic features. Note: boundary situations with neighboring states prevent many countries from extending their fishing or economic zones to a full 200 nautical miles (370.4 km). erectus to H. Territorial sea: 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) claimed by most, but can vary. erectus populations (known as "multiregional") as some evidence in ancient bones show a transitional change from H. Exclusive economic zone: 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) claimed by most, but can vary. It remains a controversial subject to whether fully modern humans evolved from separate H.

Exclusive fishing zone: 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) claimed by most, but can vary. By less than 100,000 years ago all proto-human populations disappeared as modern humans took over or drove other human species into extinction. Continental shelf: 200 m depth claimed by most or to depth of exploitation; others claim 200 nautical miles (370.4 km) or to the edge of the continental margin. By 100,000 to 50,000 years ago modern human beings settled in all parts of the Old world (including the New World, Americas 25,000 to 11,000 BCE). Contiguous zone: 24 nautical miles (44.4 km) claimed by most, but can vary. Homo sapiens idaltu). Note: 70.8 % of the world's surface is covered by water, 29.2 % is exposed land. Fully modern humans (Homo sapiens) are believed to originally have evolved roughly 200,000 and 168,000 years ago in Ethiopia or Southern Africa (ei.

Water: 361.132 million km². erectus settled into various areas in the Old World. land: 148.94 million km². By 2 million years ago the first wave of migration from the species in association with H. Total: 510.073 million km². Originally it is thought that these early hominis first evolved in Africa during the Pleistocene and that human evolution first took place in Africa expanding 7 million years. 5100 to 6378 km - Inner Core. erectus have been studied since the late 18th century to 19th century in various areas of Eastern Asia including Indonesia (in particular the Island of Java) and Malaysia.

2890 to 5100 km - Outer Core. Evidence of primitive stone tool technology and animal bones in association to H. 100 to 700 km - Asthenosphere. One particular cave in Zhoukoudian (now known as Peking) has fossilised evidence dating to 300,000 and 550,000 years old. 35 to 2890 km - Mantle