Barkam or Markang or Muerkvua is a county-level city in Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture , in the northwest of Sichuan province, China. The city seat is the town of Barkam . As of the 2010 Chinese Census , Barkam has a population of 58,437.
120-619: Barkam comes from the Tibetan "place of strong fire" and, by extension, "place of prosperity". Historically, Barkam belonged to the Somang Tusi ( Chinese : 梭磨土司 ; pinyin : Suōmó Tǔsī ), one of the Gyalrong Tusi . The area was administered as three units: Zhuokeji ( Chinese : 卓克基 ; pinyin : Zhuōkèjī ), Zonggag ( Chinese : 松岗 ; pinyin : Sōnggǎng ), and Tamba ( Chinese : 党坝 ; pinyin : Dǎngbà ). During
240-464: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
360-470: A subarctic climate ( Köppen Dwc )- featuring extremely cold winters down to −30 °C and even cold summer nights. The region is geologically active with landslides and earthquakes. Average elevation ranges from 2,000 to 3,500 meters; average temperatures range from 0 to 15 °C. The southern part of the province, including Panzhihua and Xichang, has a sunny climate with short, very mild winters and very warm to hot summers. Sichuan borders Qinghai to
480-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
600-505: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
720-595: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
840-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
960-597: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
1080-700: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
1200-564: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
1320-687: A mission to establish temporary governing committees in the area of present-day Barkam. The People's Republic of China established control of the area in August 1951. In September 1951, the area was incorporated as the Situ Aba Provisional Military Government Committee ( Chinese : 四土阿坝临时军政委员会 ; pinyin : Sìtǔ Ābà Línshí Jūnzhèng Wěiyuánhuì ). In April 1953, Barkam was organized as the Barkam Office ( Chinese : 马尔康办事处 ; pinyin : Mǎ'ěrkāng Bànshìchù ). Barkam
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#17328550083421440-459: A population of 58,437. This represents an increase from the 55,046 recorded in the 2000 Chinese Census . Barkam had a population of 54,735 in 1999. In 1996, Barkam had an estimated population of 54,000. As of 2016 government figures, 77.41% of Barkam is classified as ethnically Tibetan , while 18.09% is ethnically Han Chinese , 2.97% is ethnically Qiang , 1.20% is ethnically Hui , and the remaining 0.34% belong to other ethnic groups . The area
1560-538: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
1680-503: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
1800-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
1920-610: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
2040-563: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
2160-596: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
2280-699: Is a province in Southwestern China , occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau —between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Chengdu , and its population stands at 83 million. Sichuan neighbors Qinghai and Gansu to the north, Shaanxi and Chongqing to the east, Guizhou and Yunnan to
2400-689: Is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of
2520-611: Is a well-preserved 15th-century monastery complex built between 1440 and 1446 during the Zhengtong Emperor 's reign (1427–64). Dabei Hall enshrines a thousand-armed wooden image of Guanyin and Huayan Hall is a repository with a revolving sutra cabinet. The wall paintings, sculptures, and other ornamental details are masterpieces of the Ming period. In the middle of the 17th century, the peasant rebel leader Zhang Xianzhong (1606–1646) from Yan'an , Shaanxi Province, nicknamed Yellow Tiger , led his peasant troop from north China to
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#17328550083422640-408: Is abundant where they live, pandas' diet consists of 99% bamboo, with small other plants, or small animals consisting of the other 1%. As the panda is native to China, they have become a national symbol of China. The politics of Sichuan is structured in a dual party-government system like all other governing institutions in mainland China . The governor of Sichuan is the highest-ranking official in
2760-485: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
2880-597: Is commonly believed that the name Sichuan means 'four rivers '; in folk etymology , this is usually taken to mean four of the province's major rivers: the Jialing , Jinsha (or Wu ), Min , and Tuo . According to historical geographer Tan Qixiang , 'four rivers' is an erroneous interpretation of the name. The name of the province is a contraction of the phrases 'Four Plain Circuits ' ( 四川路 ; Sìchuān lù ) and 'Four Circuits of Chuanxia' ( 川峽四路 ; chuānxiásìlù ), referring to
3000-473: Is home to over 1,300 ingredients used in traditional Chinese medicine , including many derived from local deer , bears , cattle , fungus , and lilies . Major historical sites in Barkam include: Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')
3120-595: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
3240-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
3360-513: Is rich in mineral resources. It has more than 132 kinds of proven underground mineral resources including vanadium, titanium, and lithium is the largest in China. The Panxi region alone possesses 13.3% of the reserves of iron, 93% of titanium, 69% of vanadium, and 83% of cobalt in the whole country. Sichuan also possesses China's largest proven natural gas reserves (such as the Dazhou and Yuanba gas fields ),
3480-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
3600-742: Is surrounded by the Hengduan Mountains to the west, the Qin Mountains to the north, and Yungui Plateau to the south. Since the Yangtze flows through the basin and then through the perilous Three Gorges to eastern and southern China, Sichuan was a staging area for amphibious military forces and a haven for political refugees. Qin armies finished their conquest of the kingdoms of Shu and Ba by 316 BC. Any written records and civil achievements of earlier kingdoms were destroyed. Qin administrators introduced improved agricultural technology. Li Bing , engineered
3720-484: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
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3840-460: Is traditionally inhabited by a branch of Rgyalrong people who speak the Situ language . Chagpar Township [ zh ] hosts a unique dialect of Situ. As of 2021, Barkam has a gross domestic product (GDP) of about 4.6 billion renminbi (RMB). This represents an approximate 70% increase from 2016. GDP per capita as of 2021 was approximately 78,000 RMB, also a 70% increase from 2016. Barkam
3960-496: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
4080-497: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
4200-540: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
4320-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
4440-678: The Chronicles of Huayang compiled in the Jin dynasty (266–420) , and the Han-dynasty compilation Chronicle of the Kings of Shu [ zh ] . These contained folk stories such as that of Emperor Duyu [ zh ] who taught the people agriculture and transformed himself into a cuckoo after his death. The existence of a highly developed civilization with an independent bronze industry in Sichuan
4560-735: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
4680-616: The Chabao River ( Chinese : 茶堡河 ; pinyin : Chábǎo Hé ), and the Gyomgyo River [ zh ] . Barkam's canyons are densely forested, with major tree genus's including fir , spruce , larch , birch , and oak . Quercus semecarpifolia , a species of oak tree, is present in Barkam. The forests in the mountains are home to various protected animals such as leopards , Thorold's deer , sika deer , takin , and various birds . Due to its elevation, Barkam lies in
4800-550: The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding . Sichuan is the 6th-largest provincial economy of China, the largest in Western China , and the second-largest among inland provinces after Henan . As of 2021, its nominal GDP was CN¥5,385 billion (US$ 847.68 billion), ahead of that of Turkey ($ 815 billion). If it were its own country, Sichuan would be the 18th-largest economy and 19th-most populous as of 2021. It
4920-603: The Daba Mountains , in the province's northeast. The Yangtze River and its tributaries flow through the mountains of western Sichuan and the Sichuan Basin; thus, the province is upstream of the great cities that stand along the Yangtze River further to the east, such as Chongqing , Wuhan , Nanjing , and Shanghai . One of the major tributaries of the Yangtze within the province is the Min River of central Sichuan, which joins
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5040-668: The Dadu River caused by an earthquake gave way on 10 June 1786. The resulting flood killed 100,000 people. In the early 20th century, the newly founded Republic of China established the Chuanbian Special Administrative District ( 川邊特別行政區 ) on the province's territories to the west of the Sichuan Basin . The Special District later became the province of Xikang , incorporating the areas inhabited by Yi , Tibetan , and Qiang ethnic minorities to its west, and eastern part of today's Tibet Autonomous Region . In
5160-469: The Dujiangyan irrigation system to control the Min River , a major tributary of the Yangtze. This innovative hydraulic system was composed of movable weirs which could be adjusted for high or low water flow according to the season, to either provide irrigation or prevent floods. The increased agricultural output and taxes made the area a source of provisions and men for Qin's unification of China. Sichuan
5280-685: The Hengduan Mountains . One of these ranges, the Daxue Mountains , contains the highest point of the province Gongga Shan , at 7,556 m (24,790 ft) above sea level. The mountains are formed by the collision of the Tibetan Plateau with the Yangtze Plate . Faults here include the Longmenshan Fault which ruptured during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Other mountain ranges surround the Sichuan Basin from north, east, and south. Among them are
5400-525: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
5520-680: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
5640-579: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
5760-735: The Qin dynasty , the area belonged to Jiandi Dao . It belonged to Wenshan Commandery [ zh ] during the Han dynasty . During the Tang and Song dynasties , the area was part of the Jimi system. The area was governed by the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs during the Yuan dynasty . During the reign of the Yongle Emperor during the Ming dynasty , the area belonged to
5880-673: The Shang in northern China. The region had its own distinct religious beliefs and worldview. The earliest excavated culture found therein is the Baodun culture ( c. 2700–1750 BC) excavated in the Chengdu Plain . The most important native states were those of Ba and Shu. Ba stretched into Sichuan from the Han Valley in Shaanxi and Hubei down the Jialing River as far as its confluence with
6000-593: The Sui dynasty , but it was during the subsequent Tang dynasty that Sichuan regained its previous political and cultural prominence for which it was known during the Han. Chengdu became nationally known as a supplier of armies and the home of Du Fu , who is sometimes called China's greatest poet. During the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763), Emperor Xuanzong of Tang fled from Chang'an to Sichuan which became his refuge. The region
6120-503: The Ten Kingdoms period (907–979). Currently, both characters for Shu and Chuan are common abbreviations for Sichuan. The region was formerly referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions . The Sichuan Basin and adjacent areas of the Yangtze watershed were a cradle of indigenous civilizations dating back to at least the 15th century BC, coinciding with
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#17328550083426240-435: The Yangtze at Chongqing . Shu occupied the valley of the Min , including Chengdu and other areas of western Sichuan. The existence of the early state of Shu was poorly recorded in the main historical records of China. It was, however, referred to in the Book of Documents as an ally of the Zhou. Accounts of Shu exist mainly as a mixture of mythological stories and historical legends recorded in local annals such as
6360-487: The Zagu Tusi [ zh ] . During the reign of the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty , the area was brought under the control of the Lifan Ting [ zh ] . Under the subsequent Jiaqing Emperor , the area was reorganized as the Zagu Ting [ zh ] . During the Republic of China , the area was organized as Lifan County ( Chinese : 理番县 ; pinyin : Lǐfān Xiàn ). In December 1950, officials from nearby Mao County embarked on
6480-423: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
6600-542: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
6720-417: The "Province of Abundance". It is one of the major agricultural production bases of China. Grain, including rice and wheat, is the major product with output that ranked first in China in 1999. Commercial crops include citrus fruits, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, peaches, and grapes. Sichuan also had the largest output of pork among all the provinces and the second largest output of silkworm cocoons in 1999. Sichuan
6840-409: The 100 million mark shortly after the 1982 census figure of 99,730,000. This changed in 1997 when the Sub-provincial city of Chongqing as well as the three surrounding prefectures of Fuling , Wanxian , and Qianjiang were split off into the new Chongqing Municipality . The new municipality was formed to spearhead China's effort to economically develop its western provinces, as well as to coordinate
6960-629: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Sichuan Sichuan
7080-471: The 19th century. During World War II , Chongqing served as the temporary capital of the Republic of China , and was heavily bombed . It was one of the last mainland areas captured by the People's Liberation Army during the Chinese Civil War , and was divided into four parts from 1949 to 1952, with Chongqing restored two years later. It suffered gravely during the Great Chinese Famine (1959–1961) but remained China's most-populous province until Chongqing
7200-497: The 20th century, as Beijing , Shanghai , Nanjing , and Wuhan had all been occupied by the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War , the capital of the Republic of China had been temporarily relocated to Chongqing , then a major city in Sichuan. An enduring legacy of this move is those nearby inland provinces, such as Shaanxi , Gansu , and Guizhou , which previously never had modern Western-style universities , began to be developed in this regard. The difficulty of accessing
7320-495: The Communists one after another, the Kuomintang government again tried to make Sichuan its stronghold on the mainland, although it already saw some Communist activity since it was one area on the road of the Long March . Chiang Kai-shek himself flew to Chongqing from Taiwan in November 1949 to lead the defense. But the same month Chongqing switched to the Communists, followed by Chengdu on 10 December. The Kuomintang general Wang Sheng wanted to stay behind with his troops to continue
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#17328550083427440-430: The Kingdom of Shu-Han as a step on the path to reuniting China. Salt production becomes a major business in Ziliujing District . During the Six Dynasties period of Chinese disunity, Sichuan began to be populated by non- Han ethnic minority peoples, owing to the migration of Gelao people from the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the Sichuan basin. Sichuan came under the firm control of a Chinese central government during
7560-490: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
7680-434: The People's Government of Sichuan. However, in the province's dual party-government governing system, the Governor has less power than the Sichuan Communist Party of China's Party Committee Secretary , colloquially termed the "Sichuan CCP Party Chief". Sichuan is the 6th-largest provincial economy of China, the largest in Western China and the second largest among inland provinces after Henan . As of 2021, its nominal GDP
7800-434: The Sichuan tea industry to pay for warhorses, but this state intervention eventually brought devastation to the local economy. The line of defense was finally broken through after the first use of firearms in history during the six-year Battle of Xiangyang , which ended in 1273. Allegedly there were a million pieces of unspecified types of skeleton bones belonging to war animals and both Song and Yuan soldiers who perished in
7920-475: The Yangtze at Yibin . There are also a number of other rivers, such as the Jialing River , Tuo River , Yalong River , Wu River , and Jinsha River , and any four of the various rivers are often grouped as the "four rivers" that the name of Sichuan is commonly and mistakenly believed to mean. Due to great differences in terrain, the climate of the province is highly variable. In general, it has strong monsoonal influences, with rainfall heavily concentrated in
8040-433: The annual precipitation of 784 mm (30.9 in) occurs from June to September. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 36% in June to 65% in December, the town receives 2,133 hours of bright sunshine annually. Diurnal temperature variation is large, averaging 16.0 °C (28.8 °F) annually. Barkam administers the following three towns and 10 townships : As of the 2010 Chinese Census , Barkam has
8160-417: The anticommunist guerilla war in Sichuan, but was recalled to Taiwan. Many of his soldiers made their way there as well, via Burma . The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, and it split Sichuan into four areas and separated Chongqing municipality. Sichuan was reconstituted in 1952, with Chongqing added in 1954, while the former Xikang province was split between Tibet in the west and Sichuan in
8280-457: The area of modern Sichuan including the now separated Chongqing Municipality was known to the Chinese as Ba–Shu , in reference to the ancient state of Ba and the ancient kingdom of Shu that once occupied the Sichuan Basin . Shu continued to be used to refer to the region to the present day; several states formed in the area used the same name, for example, the Shu of the Three Kingdoms period (220–280), and Former Shu and Later Shu of
8400-413: The authority of Yangtze Valley emperors over China. In 221, during the partition following the fall of the Eastern Han – the era of the Three Kingdoms – Liu Bei founded the southwest kingdom of Shu Han ( 蜀 漢 ; 221–263) in parts of Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan, with Chengdu as its capital. Shu-Han claimed to be the successor to the Han dynasty. In 263, the Cao Wei of North China conquered
8520-446: The conventional historiography that the local culture and technology of Sichuan were undeveloped in comparison to the technologically and culturally "advanced" Yellow River valley of north-central China. The rulers of the expansionist state of Qin , based in present-day Gansu and Shaanxi , were the first strategists to realize that the area's military importance matched its commercial and agricultural significance. The Sichuan basin
8640-411: The deportation of Sichuanese civilians to Mongolia occurred in the aftermath of a battle in 1259 when more than 80,000 people were taken captive from one city in Sichuan and moved to Mongolia. The Ming dynasty defeated Ming Yuzhen 's Xia polity which ruled Sichuan. During the Ming dynasty , major architectural works were created in Sichuan. Buddhism remained influential in the region. Bao'en Temple
8760-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
8880-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
9000-428: The division of the existing imperial administrative circuit in the area into four during the Northern Song dynasty , which were Yizhou , Lizhou , Zizhou , and Kuizhou . The word chuan ( 川 ) here means 'plain', not its typical meaning of 'river' as popularly assumed. In addition to its postal map and Wade–Giles forms, the name has also been irregularly romanized as Szű-chuan and Szechuen . In antiquity,
9120-467: The east. The province was deeply affected by the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–1961, during which period some 9.4 million people (13.07% of the population at the time) died. In 1978, when Deng Xiaoping took power, Sichuan was one of the first provinces to experiment with the market economic enterprise. From 1955 until 1997, Sichuan had been China's most populous province; the population hit
9240-521: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
9360-463: The end of the year 2017, the total population is 83.02 million. Sichuan consists of two geographically very distinct parts. The eastern part of the province is mostly within the fertile Sichuan basin (which is shared by Sichuan with Chongqing Municipality). The western Sichuan consists of numerous mountain ranges forming the easternmost part of the Tibetan Plateau , which are known generically as
9480-419: The fighting over the city, although the figure may have been grossly exaggerated. The recorded number of families in Sichuan dropped from 2,640,000 families, as recorded from the census taken in 1162 AD, to 120,000 families in 1282 AD. Possible causes include forced population transfer to nearby areas, evacuation to nearby provinces, census under-reporting or inaccuracy, and war-related deaths. One instance of
9600-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
9720-695: The first true paper money in human history ( 交子 ; jiāozǐ ) was issued in Chengdu . It was also during the Song dynasty that the bulk of the native Ba people of eastern Sichuan assimilated into the Han Chinese ethnicity. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Southern Song dynasty established coordinated defenses against the Mongolian Yuan dynasty , in Sichuan and Xiangyang . The Southern Song state monopolized
9840-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
9960-599: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
10080-581: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
10200-516: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
10320-527: The majority of which are transported to more developed eastern regions. Sichuan is one of the major industrial centers of China. It was a major recipient of China's investment in industrial capacity during the Third Front campaign. In addition to heavy industries such as coal, energy, iron, and steel, the province has also established a light industrial sector comprising building materials, wood processing, food, and silk processing. Chengdu and Mianyang are
10440-532: The merger of the now-defunct town of Zhuokeji [ zh ] into the town of Barkam . Barkam is located within the southwest portion of Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture , in northwest Sichuan . The city is located on the southern edge of the Northwest Sichuan Plateau [ zh ] . Major rivers that flow through Barkam include the Somang River [ zh ] ,
10560-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
10680-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
10800-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
10920-606: The neighboring Huguang Province (modern Hubei and Hunan) and other provinces during the Qing dynasty. Sichuan was originally the origin of the Deng lineage until one of them was hired as an official in Guangdong during the Ming dynasty but during the Qing plan to increase the population in 1671 they came to Sichuan again. In 1904 Deng Xiaoping was born in Sichuan. During the Qing dynasty , Sichuan
11040-540: The northwest, Gansu to the north, Shaanxi to the northeast, Chongqing to the east, Guizhou to the southeast, Yunnan to the south, and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the west. Giant pandas live in bamboo forests and low mountainous areas such as the Minshan Mountains in Sichuan. The majority of the panda population lives in Sichuan, with their range spreading into Shaanxi and Gansu . As it
11160-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
11280-491: The provincial capital of Chengdu. Official figures recorded a death toll of nearly 70,000 people, and millions of people were left homeless. Sichuan consists of twenty-one prefecture-level divisions : eighteen prefecture-level cities (including a sub-provincial city ) and three autonomous prefectures : The twenty prefectures of Sichuan are subdivided into 183 county-level divisions (53 districts , 17 county-level cities , 109 counties , and 4 autonomous counties ). At
11400-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
11520-506: The region overland from the eastern part of China and the foggy climate hindering the accuracy of the Japanese bombing of the Sichuan Basin made the region the stronghold of Chiang Kai-shek 's Kuomintang government during 1938–45 and led to the Bombing of Chongqing . The Second Sino-Japanese War was soon followed by the resumed Chinese Civil War , and the cities of East China are obtained by
11640-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
11760-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
11880-524: The resettlement of residents from the reservoir areas of the Three Gorges Dam project. In 1997, when Sichuan split, the sum of the two parts was recorded to be 114,720,000 people. As of 2010, Sichuan ranks as both the 3rd largest (the largest among Chinese provinces with a population greater than 50 million) and 4th most populous province in China. In May 2008, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9/8.0 hit just 79 km (49 mi) northwest of
12000-505: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
12120-511: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
12240-522: The south and conquered Sichuan. Upon capturing it, he declared himself emperor of the Daxi dynasty ( 大西王朝 ). In response to the resistance from local elites, he massacred a large number of people in Sichuan, killing around one in three people. As a result of the massacre as well as years of turmoil during the Ming-Qing transition , the population of Sichuan fell sharply, requiring massive resettlement of people from
12360-480: The south, and Tibet to the west. During antiquity, Sichuan was home to the kingdoms of Ba and Shu until their incorporation by the Qin . During the Three Kingdoms era (220–280), Liu Bei 's state of Shu was based in Sichuan. The area was devastated in the 17th century by Zhang Xianzhong 's rebellion and the area's subsequent Manchu conquest, but recovered to become one of China's most productive areas by
12480-693: The summer. Under the Köppen climate classification , the Sichuan Basin (including Chengdu ) in the eastern half of the province experiences a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa or Cfa ), with long, hot, wet summers and short, mild to cool, dry, and cloudy winters. Consequently, it has China's lowest sunshine totals. The western region has mountainous areas producing a cooler but sunnier climate. Having cool to very cold winters and mild summers, temperatures generally decrease with greater elevation. However, due to its high altitude and its inland location, many areas such as Garze County and Zoige County in Sichuan exhibit
12600-609: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
12720-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
12840-529: The transition between a subtropical highland climate ( Köppen Cwb ) and humid continental climate (Köppen Dwb ), with strong monsoonal influences; winters are frosty and summers warm with frequent rain. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from −0.5 °C (31.1 °F) in December and January to 16.4 °C (61.5 °F) in July, while the annual mean is 8.75 °C (47.7 °F). Nearly two-thirds of
12960-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
13080-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
13200-508: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
13320-519: Was 5,385 billion yuan (US$ 847.68 billion), ahead of the GDP of Turkey of 815 billion. Compared to a country, it would be the 18th-largest economy as well as the 19th most populous as of 2021. As of 2021, its nominal GDP per capita was 64,357 RMB (US$ 10,120). In 2021, the per capita net income of rural residents was 17,575 yuan (US$ 2760). The per capita disposable income of the urbanites averaged 41,444 yuan (US$ 6510). Sichuan has been historically known as
13440-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
13560-513: Was absorbed by the Song . During the Song dynasty (960–1279), Sichuanese was able to protect themselves from Tibetan attacks with the help of the central government. There were rebellions against the Song by Li Shun in 994 and Wang Jun in 1000. Sichuan also saw cultural revivals like the great poets Su Xun ( 蘇洵 ), Su Shi , and Su Zhe . Although paper currency was known in the Tang dynasty, in 1023 AD,
13680-405: Was again separated from it in 1997. The Sichuanese people speak distinctive dialects of Mandarin Chinese . The spicy Sichuan pepper is prominent in modern Sichuan cuisine , featuring dishes—including Kung Pao chicken and mapo tofu , that have become staples of Chinese cuisine around the world. There are many panda stations in the province and large reserves for these creatures, such as
13800-521: Was excavated in 1986 at a small village named Sanxingdui in Guanghan , Sichuan. This site, believed to be an ancient city of Shu, was initially discovered by a local farmer in 1929 who found jade and stone artifacts. Excavations by archeologists yielded few significant finds until 1986 when two major sacrificial pits were found with spectacular bronze items as well as artifacts in jade, gold, earthenware, and stone. This and other discoveries in Sichuan contest
13920-481: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
14040-536: Was merged with Shaanxi and Shanxi to create "Shenzhuan" during 1680–1731 and 1735–1748. The current borders of Sichuan (which then included Chongqing ) were established in the early 18th century. In the aftermath of the Sino-Nepalese War on China's southwestern border, the Qing gave Sichuan's provincial government direct control over the minority-inhabited areas of Sichuan west of Kangding , which had previously been handled by an amban . A landslide dam on
14160-560: Was reorganized as a county on April 21, 1956. In 1957, the areas of Sizhai ( Chinese : 四寨 ), Rangkou [ zh ] ( Chinese : 壤口 ), and Longri [ zh ] ( Chinese : 龙日 ) were moved from Barkam County to nearby Hongyuan County . In November 2015, the State Council agreed to reorganize Barkam as a county-level city . On December 18, 2019, the Department of Civil Affairs of Sichuan Province approved
14280-485: Was subjected to the autonomous control of kings named by the imperial family of the Han dynasty. During the 11 years hiatus between 25 and 36 AD, Sichuan was controlled by the Chengjia Kingdom. Following the declining central government of the Han dynasty in the second century, the Sichuan basin, surrounded by mountains and easily defensible, became a popular place for upstart generals to found kingdoms that challenged
14400-558: Was torn by constant warfare and economic distress as it was besieged by the Tibetan Empire . In the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period , Sichuan became the heart of the Shu kingdom with its capital in Chengdu . In 925, the kingdom was absorbed into Later Tang but would regain independence under Meng Zhixiang who founded Later Shu in 934. Later Shu would continue until 965 when it
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