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Alternative meaning: In geology, North China (continent) and South China (continent) were two ancient landmasses that correspond to modern northern and southern China.
Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions within China. The exact boundary between these two regions has never been precisely defined. Nevertheless, the self-perception of Chinese people, especially regional stereotypes, has often been dominated by these two concepts.
Extent
The boundary between northern and southern China is generally defined to be the Qinling Mountains and Huai River (Huai He). In the eastern provinces like Jiangsu and Anhui, however, the Yangtze River is usually perceived as the north-south boundary instead of the Huai River. There is an ambiguous area, the region around Nanyang, Henan, that lies in the gap where the Qinling has ended and the Huai River has not yet begun; in addition, central Anhui and Jiangsu lie south of the Huai River but north of the Yangtze, making their classification somewhat ambiguous as well. As such, the boundary between northern and southern China does not follow provincial boundaries; it cuts through Shaanxi, Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu, and creates areas such as Hanzhong (Shaanxi), Xinyang (Henan), and Xuzhou (Jiangsu) that lie on an opposite half of China from the rest of their respective provinces. This may have been deliberate; the Mongol Yuan Dynasty and Han Chinese Ming Dynasty established many of these boundaries intentionally to discourage regionalist separatism.
Areas often thought as being outside "China proper", such as Manchuria, Taiwan, and Inner Mongolia, are also conceived as belonging to either northern and southern China according to the framework above. Xinjiang and Tibet are, however, not usually conceived of being part of either north or south.
History
The concepts of northern and southern China originate from differences in climate, geography, culture, and physical traits; as well as several periods of actual political division in history. Northern China is too cold and dry for rice cultivation (though it does happen today with modern technology) and consists largely of flat plains, grasslands, and desert; while Southern China is warm and rainy enough for rice and consists of lush mountains cut by river valleys. There are also major differences in language, cuisine, culture and popular entertainment forms.
Episodes of division into North and South include:
- Three Kingdoms (220-280)
- Sixteen Kingdoms (317-420) and Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589)
- Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907-960)
- Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) and Jin Dynasty (1115-1234)
- Warlord era (1916-1928)
The Southern and Northern Dynasties showed such a high level of polarization between North and South that northerners and southerners referred to each other as barbarians; the Mongol Yuan Dynasty also made use of the concept by dividing Han Chinese into two castes: a higher caste of northerners and a lower caste of southerners. (These were the second-lowest and lowest castes of the Yuan Dynasty.)
Today
In modern times, North and South is merely one of the ways that Chinese people identify themselves, and the divide between northern and southern China has been overridden both by a unified Chinese nationalism and as well as by local loyalities to province, county and village which prevent a coherent Northern or Southern identity from forming.
Few Chinese people (with the exception of Taiwanese politician Lee Teng-hui) would consider the difference between North and South sufficient reason for political division. During the Deng Xiaoping reforms of the 1980s, South China initially developed much more quickly than North China leading some scholars to wonder whether the economic fault line would create political tension between north and south. Some of this was based on the idea that there would be conflict between the bureaucratic north and the commercial south. This has not occurred in part because the economic faultlines eventually created divisions between coastal China and the interior, as well as urban and rural China, which run in different directions from the north-south division, and in part because neither north or south has any type of obvious advantage within the Chinese central government. In addition there are other cultural divisions that exist within and across the north-south barrier.
Stereotypes
Nevertheless, the concepts of North and South continue to play an important role in regional stereotypes.
The stereotypical Northerner:
- Is tall
- Has small, slit-like, and/or slanty eyes
- Has a longer rugged face (possibly with considerably more facial hair than southerners)
- Speaks a northern Mandarin dialect
- Eats wheat-based food rather than rice-based food
- Is loud, boisterous, open, and prone to "thunderbolt" displays of emotion, such as anger
The stereotypical Southerner:
- Is short
- Has almond-shaped eyes
- Has a smooth, round face (more than likely, no facial hair)
- Speaks a southern dialect such as Yue (Cantonese), Min, or Wu
- Eats rice-based food rather than wheat-based food
- Is clever, calculating, hardworking, and prone to "mincemeat" displays of emotion, such as brooding melancholy
Note that these are very rough stereotypes, and are greatly complicated both by further stereotypes by province (or even county) and by real life.
See also
- Nan Quan (Southern Fist)
"Northern and southern China"