China (Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo), country in East Asia, the world's third largest country by area (after Russia and Canada) and the largest by population. Officially People's Republic of China, it is bounded on the north by the Mongolian Republic and Russia; on the northeast by Russia and North Korea; on the east by the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea; on the south by the South China Sea, Vietnam, Laos, Burma (Myanmar), India, Bhutan, and Nepal; on the west by Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan; and on the northwest by Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. China includes more than 3400 offshore islands, of which Hainan, in the South China Sea, is by far the largest. The total area of China is about 9,571,300 sq km (about 3,695,000 sq mi), not including Nationalist China, known officially as the Republic of China. The capital of China is Beijing; the country's largest city is Shanghai. More than one-fifth of the world's total population lives within China's borders. China gave birth to one of the world's earliest civilizations and has a recorded history that dates from some 3500 years ago. Zhonghua, the Chinese name for the country, means central land, a reference to the Chinese belief that their country was the geographical center of the earth and the only true civilization. By the 19th century China had become a politically and economically weak nation, dominated by foreign powers. The accession of the Communist government in 1949 stands as one of the most important events in Chinese history; in a remarkably short period of time radical changes were effected in both the Chinese economy and society. Since the 1970s China has cast off its self-imposed isolation from the international community and has sought to modernize its economic structure.