To the south, the monsoon rain provides more moisture. The Yangzi River, the longest river in China, provides good drainage and transportation. Rice is the main grain crop growing in this area. Western China is high and dry, unsuitable for agriculture. People there live a nomadic tribal life that depends on animal husbandry.
China controls almost all the warm water ports east of the Eurasian continent.
During the nineteenth century, this control became a source of irritation to the Russians who needed an outlet for the products of Siberia, creating pressure on the Russian-Chinese border. Ninety-three percent of the people living in China now are known as Han Chinese. They live mostly in China proper, the area south of the Great Wall. The other seven percent are known as minority people. They mostly live in Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner-Mongolia, and other border areas in the northeast and south.