China

China occupies the eastern half of the Eurasian continent and extends across more than 50 degrees of latitude and 60 degrees of longitude. The TDWG region 36 covers the mainland in nine subdivisions — Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, three central groups, and Hainan — and excludes Taiwan, which is a separate region. The land surface ranges from Turpan Depression in Xinjiang at -154 metres to Mount Everest on the Tibet–Nepal border at 8,849 metres.

Climate is so varied that any single label is a compromise. The eastern half is dominantly temperate, with humid continental Manchuria in the north grading to humid subtropical in the south. The southwest carries true tropical pockets in Yunnan and on Hainan. The interior — Xinjiang, the Tarim and Junggar basins, much of Inner Mongolia — is arid, holding the Taklamakan and parts of the Gobi. The Tibetan Plateau averages above 4,000 metres and is the largest area of high cold climate outside the poles.

This spread of climate produces a flora to match. China holds around 31,362 vascular plant species, of which roughly 15,900 (about 51%) are endemic and 124 entire genera are found nowhere else. The Hengduan Mountains in northern Yunnan and western Sichuan alone hold about 12,000 vascular plants — close to 40% of China's flora — and are a global centre of diversity for Rhododendron, Primula, Meconopsis, Magnolia, and Camellia. Two living-fossil conifers, Ginkgo biloba and Metasequoia glyptostroboides (the dawn redwood, rediscovered alive in 1944 in Hubei), survive here from much older floras. Karst landscapes in Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan support a distinct cliff and cave flora rich in Begonia, Primulina, Aspidistra, and Sinningia relatives, much of it microendemic to single mountain blocks.