Cultural World. China's cultural world can be divided into three parts: China Proper, its border regions, and various remote areas. China Proper during the imperial era (617-1644) constituted only one-third of the total area of the Chinese world, but it embraced 95 percent of the population. In spite of the fact that China Proper possesses a variety of topographical features and a continental climate of extremes, the Chinese people succeeded in forming a unified empire thanks to a common written language and political philosophy. Naturally, regionalism exists in such a large country, but obstacles were never so great that they partitioned the Chinese culture to the same extent as the Europeans were divided.

Internal Boundaries. Physical features such as mountain ranges and large rivers help to define internal boundaries of China Proper, which is divided into three parts: North, Central, and South. North China is watered...