Surface area (sq. km) in China was reported at 9562910 sq. Km in 2022, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. China - Surface area (sq. km) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on August of 2025.

Land area (sq. km) in China was reported at 9388210 sq. Km in 2022, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. China - Land area (sq. km) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on August of 2025.

China: Land area in sq. km: The latest value from 2022 is 9388210 sq. km, unchanged from 9388210 sq. km in 2021. In comparison, the world average is 673036 sq. km, based on data from 191 countries. Historically, the average for China from 1961 to 2022 is 9388234 sq. km. The minimum value, 9388210 sq. km, was reached in 2016 while the maximum of 9388250 sq. km was recorded in 1961.

China Area of Urban Zone data was reported at 2,371,372.710 sq km in 2022. This records an increase from the previous number of 2,368,544.490 sq km for 2021. China Area of Urban Zone data is updated yearly, averaging 1,986,564.870 sq km from Dec 2006 (Median) to 2022, with 17 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2,371,372.710 sq km in 2022 and a record low of 1,899,921.300 sq km in 2010. China Area of Urban Zone data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Land and Resources – Table CN.NLL: Urban Area.

Russia is the largest country in the world by far, with a total area of just over 17 million square kilometers. After Antarctica, the next three countries are Canada, the U.S., and China; all between 9.5 and 10 million square kilometers. The figures given include internal water surface area (such as lakes or rivers) - if the figures were for land surface only then China would be the second largest country in the world, the U.S. third, and Canada (the country with more lakes than the rest of the world combined) fourth. Russia Russia has a population of around 145 million people, putting it in the top ten most populous countries in the world, and making it the most populous in Europe. However, it's vast size gives it a very low population density, ranked among the bottom 20 countries. Most of Russia's population is concentrated in the west, with around 75 percent of the population living in the European part, while around 75 percent of Russia's territory is in Asia; the Ural Mountains are considered the continental border. Elsewhere in the world Beyond Russia, the world's largest countries all have distinctive topographies and climates setting them apart. The United States, for example, has climates ranging from tundra in Alaska to tropical forests in Florida, with various mountain ranges, deserts, plains, and forests in between. Populations in these countries are often concentrated in urban areas, and are not evenly distributed across the country. For example, around 85 percent of Canada's population lives within 100 miles of the U.S. border; around 95 percent of China lives east of the Heihe–Tengchong Line that splits the country; and the majority of populations in large countries such as Australia or Brazil live near the coast.

Population density (people per sq. km of land area) in China was reported at 150 sq. Km in 2022, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. China - Population density (people per sq. km) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on August of 2025.

In 2022, the estimated population density of China was around 150.42 people per square kilometer. That year, China's population size declined for the first time in decades. Although China is the most populous country in the world, its overall population density is not much higher than the average population density in Asia. Uneven population distribution China is one of the largest countries in terms of land area, and its population density figures vary dramatically from region to region. Overall, the coastal regions in the East and Southeast have the highest population densities, as they belong to the more economically developed regions of the country. These coastal regions also have a higher urbanization rate. On the contrary, the regions in the West are covered with mountain landscapes which are not suitable for the development of big cities. Populous cities in China Several Chinese cities rank among the most populous cities in the world. According to estimates, Beijing and Shanghai will rank among the top ten megacities in the world by 2030. Both cities are also the largest Chinese cities in terms of land area. The previous colonial regions, Macao and Hong Kong, are two of the most densely populated cities in the world.

China Area of Downtown data was reported at 191,216.770 sq km in 2022. This records an increase from the previous number of 188,300.450 sq km for 2021. China Area of Downtown data is updated yearly, averaging 396,922.835 sq km from Dec 1981 (Median) to 2022, with 42 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,171,698.000 sq km in 1995 and a record low of 166,533.510 sq km in 2006. China Area of Downtown data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Land and Resources – Table CN.NLL: Urban Area.

China: Agricultural land, sq. km.: The latest value from 2021 is 5206950 sq. km., unchanged from 5206950 sq. km. in 2020. In comparison, the world average is 245857 sq. km., based on data from 193 countries. Historically, the average for China from 1961 to 2021 is 4682811 sq. km.. The minimum value, 3423500 sq. km., was reached in 1961 while the maximum of 5282176 sq. km. was recorded in 2009.

China Land Requisition Area of City: Arable Land data was reported at 823.430 sq km in 2022. This records a decrease from the previous number of 827.920 sq km for 2021. China Land Requisition Area of City: Arable Land data is updated yearly, averaging 775.550 sq km from Dec 2001 (Median) to 2022, with 22 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,863.400 sq km in 2002 and a record low of 370.200 sq km in 2001. China Land Requisition Area of City: Arable Land data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Land and Resources – Table CN.NLL: Urban Area.

Forest area (sq. km) in China was reported at 2237373 sq. Km in 2022, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. China - Forest area (sq. km) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on August of 2025.

Russia is the largest country in Europe, and also the largest in the world, its total size amounting to 17 million square kilometers (km2). It should be noted, however, that over three quarters of Russia is located in Asia, and the Ural mountains are often viewed as the meeting point of the two continents in Russia; nonetheless, European Russia is still significantly larger than any other European country. Ukraine, the second largest country on the continent, is only 603,000 km2, making it about 28 times smaller than its eastern neighbor, or seven times smaller than the European part of Russia. France is the third largest country in Europe, but the largest in the European Union. The Vatican City, often referred to as the Holy Sea, is both the smallest country in Europe and in the world, at just one km2. Population Russia is also the most populous country in Europe. It has around 144 million inhabitants across the country; in this case, around three quarters of the population live in the European part, which still gives it the largest population in Europe. Despite having the largest population, Russia is a very sparsely populated country due to its size and the harsh winters. Germany is the second most populous country in Europe, with 83 million inhabitants, while the Vatican has the smallest population. Worldwide, India and China are the most populous countries, with approximately 1.4 billion inhabitants each. Cities Moscow in Russia is ranked as the most populous city in Europe with around 13 million inhabitants, although figures vary, due to differences in the methodologies used by countries and sources. Some statistics include Istanbul in Turkey* as the largest city in Europe with its 15 million inhabitants, bit it has been excluded here as most of the country and parts of the city is located in Asia. Worldwide, Tokyo is the most populous city, with Jakarta the second largest and Delhi the third.

China Area of Built District data was reported at 63,676.400 sq km in 2022. This records an increase from the previous number of 62,420.530 sq km for 2021. China Area of Built District data is updated yearly, averaging 24,999.615 sq km from Dec 1981 (Median) to 2022, with 42 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 63,676.400 sq km in 2022 and a record low of 7,438.000 sq km in 1981. China Area of Built District data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Land and Resources – Table CN.NLL: Urban Area.

The average for 2021 based on 45 countries was 133440.6 sq. km. The highest value was in China: 2218577.5 sq. km and the lowest value was in Qatar: 0 sq. km. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2022. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Abstract: Northwest China is deeply inland, and has a dry climate. The variation of lake area can reflect the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of regional water resources to a certain extent. This data set is based on the comprehensive analysis of meteorological data and the actual coverage of Landsat series satellite images to determine the interpretation time. Referring to the lake data set of "Lake data set of 1:250000 above 1km2 in China（2005-2006）", the 113 lakes were selected as vectorization objects, which are in natural conditions, larger than 10 km2 and non-dry salt lakes. The lake boundary vector data of 15 periods from 2000 to 2014 were extracted by artificial visual interpretation. According to the principle of artificial visual interpretation of the lake area determined by the “Investigation on water quality, water quantity and biological resources of lakes in China” of the special of basic work of science and technology in the Ministry of science and technology, the accuracy of interpretation is controlled within one pixel.The data set includes three parts: (1) boundary vector data of northwest China, and (2) lake boundary vector data from 2000 to 2014, and (3) lake location and area statistics vector file. The data set basically reflects the change in lake’s boundary in northwest China from 2000 to 2014, which can be used as basic data for research on temporal and spatial changes of lakes in the region, climate change, and manual intervention in regional water resources.

China Area of City Construction: Green Land data was reported at 4,455.470 sq km in 2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 4,060.230 sq km for 2010. China Area of City Construction: Green Land data is updated yearly, averaging 3,154.690 sq km from Dec 2001 (Median) to 2011, with 11 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 4,455.470 sq km in 2011 and a record low of 2,046.400 sq km in 2001. China Area of City Construction: Green Land data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Land and Resources – Table CN.NLL: Urban Area.

Agricultural land (sq. km) in China was reported at 5206950 sq. Km in 2021, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. China - Agricultural land (sq. km) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on August of 2025.

If you want to use this data, please cite our article:Xiong, S., Zhang, X., Lei, Y., Tan, G., Wang, H., & Du, S. (2024). Time-series China urban land use mapping (2016–2022): An approach for achieving spatial-consistency and semantic-transition rationality in temporal domain. Remote Sensing of Environment, 312, 114344.The global urbanization trend is geographically manifested through city expansion and the renewal of internal urban structures and functions. Time-series urban land use (ULU) maps are vital for capturing dynamic land changes in the urbanization process, giving valuable insights into urban development and its environmental consequences. Recent studies have mapped ULU in some cities with a unified model, but ignored the regional differences among cities; and they generated ULU maps year by year, but ignored temporal correlations between years; thus, they could be weak in large-scale and long time-series ULU monitoring. Accordingly, we introduce an temporal-spatial-semantic collaborative (TSS) mapping framework to generating accurate ULU maps with considering regional differences and temporal correlations. Firstly, to support model training, a large-scale ULU sample dataset based on OpenStreetMap (OSM) and Sentinel-2 imagery is automatically constructed, providing a total number of 56,412 samples with a size of 512 × 512 which are divided into six sub-regions in China and used for training different classification models. Then, an urban land use mapping network (ULUNet) is proposed to recognize ULU. This model utilizes a primary and an auxiliary encoder to process noisy OSM samples and can enhance the model's robustness under noisy labels. Finally, taking the temporal correlations of ULU into consideration, the recognized ULU are optimized, whose boundaries are unified by a time-series co-segmentation, and whose categories are modified by a knowledge-data driven method. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we consider all urban areas in China (254,566 km2), and produce a time-series China urban land use dataset (CULU) at a 10-m resolution, spanning from 2016 to 2022, with an overall accuracy of CULU is 82.42%. Through comparison, it can be found that CULU outperforms existing datasets such as EULUC-China and UFZ-31cities in data accuracies, spatial boundaries consistencies and land use transitions logicality. The results indicate that the proposed method and generated dataset can play important roles in land use change monitoring, ecological-environmental evolution analysis, and also sustainable city development.

China Area of City Construction data was reported at 59,451.690 sq km in 2022. This records an increase from the previous number of 59,424.590 sq km for 2021. China Area of City Construction data is updated yearly, averaging 25,512.665 sq km from Dec 1981 (Median) to 2022, with 42 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 59,451.690 sq km in 2022 and a record low of 6,720.000 sq km in 1981. China Area of City Construction data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Land and Resources – Table CN.NLL: Urban Area.

Data components

Folder "CRD" contains the recorded (5,143) reservoirs from yearbook and document data and all (97,435) reservoirs from CRD (China Reservoir Database) two parts:

• CRD_all_reservoirs (in both shapefile format and the comma-separated values (csv) format): This database catalogs the location information of 97,435 reservoirs in China, with an aggregated area of 50,085.21 km2 and an estimated total storage capacity of 979.62 Gt. The attributes of all the CRD reservoirs (in all cases) include location information (longitude, latitude, province, prefecture, and county), inundation area, and estimated storage capacity.

• CRD_record_reservoirs (in both shapefile and csv): The 5,143 reservoirs in the CRD database were directly derived from the yearbook and other documents data, accounting for 59% and 82% of the total reservoir area and storage capacity of the CRD database, respectively. This reservoir information was mainly obtained through manual compilation. The attributes of the recorded reservoirs include the longitude and latitude of the reservoir, name, province, prefecture, and county where the reservoir is located, water area, normal water level, storage capacity, reservoir class, main use, and regulation type.

Note: Thank you for accessing the CRD v1.1 dataset, which is available through the new link: https://www.scidb.cn/s/zqIFVr; DOI: 10.57760/sciencedb.05331