China Villas

The country is rich in history, culture and environments. The increasing use of the free market has enabled great capability for land to be used for holiday ing in China. Villas are being constructed in some of the great tourist destinations such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Suzhou, Qingdao, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hainan, Nanjing, Shenyang. The designs do not allways go for Chinese style and it is surprising how many of the villas advertised on the net are deliberately of North American design such as Le Leman Lake Villas, Grand Hills. Some such as Beijing Villa - Greenland Garden have a Chinese style. So there is many a different type of villa.

Because of its vast population, rapidly growing economy, large research and development investments, China is often considered as an emerging superpower

The territory of the PRC contains a large variety of landscapes. In the east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, there are extensive and densely populated alluvial plains, while on the edges of the Inner Mongolian plateau in the north, grasslands can be seen. Southern China is dominated by hill country and low mountain ranges. In the central-east are the deltas of China's two major rivers, the Yellow River and Yangtze River (Chang Jiang). Other major rivers include the Xi, Mekong, Brahmaputra and Amur.

To the west, major mountain ranges, notably the Himalayas, with China's highest point at the eastern half of Mount Everest, and high plateaus feature among the more arid landscapes such as the Taklamakan and the Gobi Desert.

China's tourism industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the national economy and is also one of the industries with a very distinct global competitive edge. The total revenue of China's tourism industry reached USD 67.3 billion in 2002, accounting for 5.44% of the GDP. It dropped, largely due to SARS, in 2003. Nevertheless, for areas rich in tourism resources, tourism has become the main source of tax revenue and the key industry for economic development.

The total number of inbound tourists was 91.66 million in 2003, and that of tourists staying overnight was 32.7 million, about 10 times of the number in 1980. International tourism receipts were USD 17.4 billion in 2003. China's ranking for both the overnight tourist arrivals and tourism receipts were among the world's top five in 2003. However, there is unlikely to be a big increase in the inbound tourism market.

China's domestic tourism market makes up more than 90 per cent of the country's tourism traffic, and contributes more than 70% of total tourism revenue. In 2002, domestic tourists reached 878 million and tourism revenue was USD 46.9 billion. The five days per week and long vacation schemes have increased leisure time for the Chinese people and spurred market demand in domestic tourism and led to its prosperity.

A large middle class population with strong consumption power is emerging in China, especially in major cities. China's outbound tourists reached 20.22 million in 2003, overtaking Japan for the first time. Currently there are 65 countries/areas open to Chinese tour groups. Putting aside the threat of SARS and other unexpected events, based on the current economic growth situation and the social development of China, China's outbound tourism is poised to achieve a new growth peak.

Driven by the flourishing tourism industry, China's tourist hotel sector is expanding rapidly. At the end of 2003, China had a total of 10,093 tourist hotels and more than 820,000 rooms. 773 of these tourist hotels were foreign-funded. The number of foreign-funded (inclusive Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan investments) four- and five-star tourist hotels made up 26 per cent and 30.02 per cent of the national total, respectively.

The China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) is the Chinese government authority responsible for the development of tourism in the country. The CNTA is subordinate to the State Council. Its headquarters are in Beijing, with regional branches in various provinces.

In 2003, there were a total of 11,522 travel agencies in China, among which, 1,349 were international ones and 10,203 were domestic ones. While overall tourism market concentration rose, there was a drop in the market position of the traditional three key travel agencies. As competition heightened, China's tourism industry on the whole, had begun to start earning low profits, even while it was expanding its scale of operations.

Currently, there are approximately 15,000 natural, cultural and man-made places of attraction which are above county level. Presently, Hong Kong investors are the main participants in the establishment of tourist attractions in China. In 2001, Sichuan became the first province to propose renting out the operation rights of 10 scenic areas to foreign investors.

China is the second largest country in Asia by area after Russia. It borders 14 nations Vietnam, Laos, Burma, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and North Korea. Additionally the border between PRC and ROC is located in territorial waters.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has led the PRC under a single party system since the state's establishment in 1949.

Grand World Villas - Find a Villa from anywhere in the world

Grand European Villas

Here are some more sites

An Index with links to almost all our sites.

A site on the El Nino Famines that killed 10s of millions of Indians, and Chinese and others in the 19th Century

The Highland Clearances

A site on the Belgian Congo, and how the king of that land killed 10s of millions of Congolese

Why the French Revolution was good

The most evil regimes of the 19th Century

A site on 1640s Britain

Worst 18th Century regimes