Where in the World?

Most of us like to think of ourselves as being rather worldly, but in truth our knowledge tends to start and stop with the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Consider the following eight locations, most of whom the average American has never even heard of:


Shandong: Has a population as big as Mexico.

Guangdong / Hainan: Have a population as big as Germany.

Anhui: Has a population as big as Italy.

Hubei: Has a population as big as France.

Liaoning: Has a population as big as Spain.

Shanxi: Has a population as big as Canada.

Tianjin: Has a population as big as Sweden

Ningxia: Has a population as big as Finland.


All of these locations are in China, of course.

Tianjin -- a city, not a province -- has a population of over 10 million people.

While falling birth rates have slowed population growth in China, demographic momentum continues to move the population of that country upwards. Between 1995 and 2025, China's population will increase by a number roughly equivalent to the total population of the United States.

Though China's population is large, it's status as #1 in terms of size is being threatened by India, whose population growth rate is twice that of China. India's population, now at well over 1 billion, is expected to overtake China's sometime within the next 30 years or so.