Geography

media type="googlemap" key="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=china&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=China&z=3&ll=35.86166,104.195397&output=embed" width="453" height="378" China Stretches 5026km across East Asia (4th largest) and is located at 35 Degrees and 105 Degrees North. It borders North Korea and Vietnam and the East China Bay, the Korea Bay, and the South China Sea. **How does Geography affect human actions?** Geography can vary a whole country’s lifestyle based on one thing: food. Depending on where a person/group of people live, dictates on what crops you grow, how many crops you grow, and how much a country can rely on other countries to import their goods. In China, for instance, they have access to large bodies of water and they produce almost one-third of the world’s fish. But due to their types of soil and hilly terrain in some parts of the country, they cannot grow as many kinds of crops as they need. However, they do produce many wheat products such as corn, wheat, and a variety of types of rice.

Predominately, the environment has shaped humans for the majority of time. People have never been able to live on the top of mountains for example, but people are forced to adjust and live near the base of the mountain. Also, geography forces people to eat different kinds of crops based on where they live and what kind of food can be grown there. Farmers in China are forced to live more in the eastern part of the country with the suitable conditions for farming.
 * Do humans shape their environment or does the environment shape humans? **

Some places are better to live than others depending on the lifestyles of the people living there. If a farmer needs land to grow crops, they need somewhere, like a field, with fertile soil and wide-open spaces and a good climate to plant their crops instead of living in the middle of a big city or a dry desert. In China, a farmer is better off living in the western, southwestern portion of China due to a more suitable climate for farming and more fertile soil.
 * Are some places better to live than others? **


 * Debate Question:** Does China’s geography have a positive/negative impact on their economy?
 * Argument 1:** Because China has very little farmable land they can barely grow enough wheat products for their own country and sometimes they need some of those products to be imported because they run out. This makes them too dependent on other countries for other foods such as fruit, vegetables, etc. so it negatively affects their country.
 * Argument 2:** Because China uses wheat products more than anything; they should import all their wheat because it is relatively cheap compared to other crops. China should grow varieties of fruits and sell their surplus to maximize profit that is not coming from all the wheat products that they barely have a surplus of.