China, to the student of commerce, is the most interesting country on
the globe. The reason for this is that its area is so large, its
population so vast, and its chances for development so magnificent.
The total area of the empire, according to late estimates, is
4,218,401 square miles. Other estimates make it 4,468,470 square
miles. The greatness of this area may be understood from a few
comparisons. It is about one twelfth of the total land surface of the
globe. It is two and one fourth times the size of European Russia. It
is almost one and one half times the total area of the United States,
exclusive of Alaska. But all of this territory is not of equal
commercial interest. The Chinese Empire consists of six parts: China
Proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, Jungaria, and Eastern Turkestan.
Because of recent treaties, which give to Russia the right to build
and "control" railways in Manchuria--ostensibly for the purpose of
securing for the great Russian Trans-Siberian Railway a shorter route
to Vladivostok, its Pacific terminus--MANCHURIA becomes practically a
RUSSIAN POSSESSION. Turkestan, Jungaria, Tibet, and Mongolia are
thinly inhabited countries, scarcely semi-civilised. But the part
which remains when these "dependencies" are left out of
consideration--CHINA PROPER--is at once one of the largest, most
thickly populated, and most fertile countries on the face of the
globe, and one also of the most richly endowed in mineral products.
Its area is 1,336,841 square miles. Its population is 386,000,000. Its
population per square mile is not far short of 300. That is to say,
its area is more than eleven times that of Great Britain and Ireland,
and almost one half that of the United States, exclusive of Alaska;
its population is ten times that of Great Britain and Ireland, and
more than six times that of the United States; while its population
per square mile is greater than that of any European or American
country except Great Britain (which, however, it nearly equals),
Holland, and Belgium. In fact, more than one fourth of the total
population of the globe is concentrated within the boundaries of
China Proper.