The social structure of China has an expensive history which begins from the feudal society of Imperial China to the contemporary era.  There was a Chinese nobility, beginning with the Zhou dynasty.  However, after the Song dynasty, the powerful government offices were not hereditary. Instead, they were selected through the imperial examination system, of written examinations based on Confucian thought, thereby undermining the power of the hereditary aristocracy.

Imperial China divided the country into four occupations or classes, with the emperor ruling over them. Throughout this time period, there were attempts to eradicate this system. Social mobility was difficult, or sometimes nearly impossible, to achieve as social class was primarily defined by an individual's identity. To rise required passing a very difficult written exam. The great majority failed, but for those who passed their entire family rose in status.

During the Song dynasty, there was a clear division in social structure which was enforced by law. However, commoners could move up in society through the acquirement of wealth. Through passing the imperial exam or donating resources, people could enter the gentry. By the Yuan dynasty, there was a decrease in protection by the law for commoners. The gentry, however, were given more privileges. The Yuan dynasty also saw an increase in slavery, as the slave status became hereditary. The new policy for commoners at this time also made the various categories within the commoner status hereditary. The Ming dynasty saw a decrease in the number of categories for commoners, in comparison to the policy implemented during the Yuan dynasty. The three categories that remained were hereditary, making it nearly impossible to move between them. Gentry was also divided into two types. By the Qing dynasty, the peasants were seen as the most respected class. Merchants were far lower in status unless they purchased gentry status.

During China's economic reform of 1978, the social structure in the country underwent many changes as the working class began to increase significantly. In 21st-century China, social structure is more reliant on employment and education, which allows citizens to have more social mobility and freedoms.

Confucianism

The teaching of Confucius (551 BCE – 479 BCE)  taught of five basic relationships in life:
 Father to son
 Older sibling to younger sibling
 Husband to wife
 Friend to friend
 Ruler to structure

For dynasties that used Confucianism (not Legalism), the first noted  in the relationship was always superior and had to act as a guide and leader/ role model to the second noted , as the second person was to follow. For example: Father, 1st noted; Son, 2nd noted.

In the Confucian view of the economy, agricultural work was morally superior. The point was work was the embodiment of a social contract. The emperor and his officials worked to ensure the welfare of the people (or "min") envisaged as peasant families. The male miners worked in the fields to produce grain for their own food and for taxes; their wives made clothing for everyone. Agriculture was thus fundamental. Crafts and trade were secondary, and typically pernicious by diverting productive labor and promoting extravagance.

Early Imperial Period
From the Qin dynasty to the late Qing dynasty (221 B.C.E.- C.E. 1840), the Chinese government divided Chinese people into four classes: landlord, peasant, craftsmen, and merchant. Landlords and peasants constituted the two major classes, while merchants and craftsmen were collected into the two minor. Theoretically, except for the position of the Emperor, nothing was hereditary.

During the 361 years of civil war after the Han dynasty (202 B.C.E. - 220 C.E.), there was a partial restoration of feudalism when wealthy and powerful families emerged with large amounts of land and huge numbers of semi-serfs. They dominated important civilian and military positions of the government, making the positions available to members of their own families and clans. The Tang dynasty extended the Imperial examination system as an attempt to eradicate this feudalism.

The Tang and the Song dynasty saw a major transition in the composition of China's ruling elites. From the Han through the Tang, official posts filled by an aristocratic network of several hundred intermarried families based in the capital. Many of them were prominent for 500 years or more, far longer than European feudal dynasties. From the Song on, however, official posts were usually filled by a much larger but less cohesive class of gentry who married and owned property in their home provinces and who rose to prominence through the examination system. Scholarly explanations for the demise of the old class and the rise of the new include Empress Wu's decision to promote newly risen bureaucrats, reforms that followed the An Lushan rebellion, the destruction of aristocratic families in the Huang Chao rebellion, and decisions taken by the families themselves in the Song dynasty to build up local power bases.

Song dynasty

During the Song dynasty social strata were clearly divided and enforced by the law. At the bottom of the pyramid were the commoners who were categorized into two groups: Fangguo Hu (city dwellers) and Xiangcun Hu (rural population). Fangguo Hu and Xiangcun Hu had ranks. The first rank, commoners (both Fangguo and Xiangcun), were the wealthiest. The ranks of commoners could change over time, as one who acquired more wealth could be promoted to a higher rank.

On the other hand, gentry and government officials were not commoners. They and their families belong to Guan Hu (Gentry). Guan Hu was not an exclusive social stratum like European nobility; by participating and passing the imperial exam, one could be qualified as a member of Guan Hu. In addition, relatives of a government official can become Guan Hu through the system of En Yin. In some rarer cases, a commoner can become Guan Hu by donating a large amount of money, grain, or industrial materials to the imperial court. In 1006, Guan Hu accounted for 1.3% of the entire population. The percentage of Guan Hu increased to 2.8% by the year 1190. The growing population of Guan Hu was partly due to the system of En Yin which allowed a relatively easy entry into the stratum of Guan Hu.

At the top of the social pyramid was the royal house of the Song dynasty. The royal house consists of the Emperor, Empress, concubines, princes, and princesses. The royal house enjoys the highest quality of life with everything provided by other social strata. With imperial fields (fields that were owned by the emperor), the basic food supplies of the royal house were satisfied. Luxury items in the imperial court also had their sources. Tea, for example, was provided by the imperial tea plantation. Annually, local products from various regions of China were paid as tributes to the royal house.

During the Song dynasty, slave trading was forbidden and punished by law. However, slavery was not entirely absent from the history of the Song dynasty. To some extent, there were slave traders who illegally kidnapped commoners and sold them as slaves. Criminals were sometimes converted to slaves by the government. However, traditional slavery was not a common practice during the Song dynasty. Servants of the wealthy gentry usually kept a contract-like relationship with the lords served.

In reality, the Song society's structure had evolved and changed over time. After the Jingkang incident, the phenomenon of land annexation became increasingly obvious. By land annexation, the wealthy commoners and government officials privatized lands that were public or owned by poorer people. In the late Song dynasty, the society's two ends were polarized. Wealthy landowners devoured most of the cultivable lands, leaving others in extreme poverty. Even the imperial court's profit was curbed. Taxation was illegally avoided by wealthy landowners and the court eventually found itself collecting much less amount of taxes than ever before. Xie Fangshu, an investigating censor famously described the situation as "The flesh of the poor ones becomes the food of the strong ones" (弱肉强食).

Jurchen Empire
The Jurchen Jin dynasty coexisted with the Song dynasty after the Jingkang incident. The Jurchen Empire ruled the northern part of China. Under the Jurchen rule, the conventional code Begile was introduced. Under this code, an emperor and his courtiers were equal. Emperor Xizong of Jin reformed the empire's legal system and abolished the Begile during the reform of Tianjuan. The reform eliminated the aboriginal Jurchen conventions and substituted them with the conventions of the Song and Liao dynasties. During the Jin dynasty, Minggan Moumuke, groups of Jurchen soldiers who settled down in Northern China, changed their nomadic lifestyle to the agricultural lifestyle of Chinese commoners.

Yuan dynasty

Kublai, the founder of the Yuan dynasty, notably gave many financial privileges to the gentries of Jiangnan region. After the defeat of the Song dynasty by the Yuan, making friends with the local elites of Song became important. As a consequence, the most wealthy ones in the Song social strata remained wealthy in the Yuan dynasty.

Contrary to the situation of the gentry, commoners of the Yuan dynasty found themselves less protected by the law. Mongol rulers did not seem to make the interests of commoners a priority. A great number of ordinary farmers were converted to plantation workers working for the gentries. The wealthy entered upon the properties of commoners while making them essentially slave peasants.

The Mongols in the Yuan dynasty belong to numerous clans. Tao Zongyi first provided a list of all the Mongol clans which was later falsified by Japanese historian Yanai Watari. However, Tao's account was one of the few contemporary accounts of Mongols during the Yuan dynasty. The records and documents of the Yuan dynasty provide extremely limited information about the social strata of Mongols. Despite the lack of historical records, it is safe to say that Mongols enjoyed privileges that other ethnic groups did not. During their reign, the Mongols converted a large number of rice fields into pastures because agriculture was foreign to them. Both the government and Mongol nobles opened up pastures in China by taking the rice fields away from ordinary farmers.

Other social castes including Semu, Hanren, and Nanren existed under the rule of Mongols. Hanren refers to dwellers of Northern China, Korea, and Sichuan. Nanren refers to citizens of the Song dynasty (excluding people from Sichuan, although the region was a part of Song).

Yuan dynasty introduced the policy of Colored population statistics (). The policy divided commoners according to their occupation. Farmers, soldiers, craftsmen, hunters, physicians, messengers, and Confucian scholars are some of the categories under this policy. The farmers had the largest population among all the commoners in the Yuan dynasty. These categories are hereditary. One soldier will give birth to a son who will later become a soldier. In comparison with other commoners, craftsmen were treated more fairly since the Mongols deemed the skills of making weapons necessary for their conquest of the world. The Mongols routinely massacred Chinese civilians with the exception of Craftsmen.

Slavery was common during the Yuan dynasty. The main sources of slaves include captives, criminals, kidnapped commoners, buying and selling of human lives. Slave status was also hereditary. A slave will give birth to slave children.

Ming dynasty

The Ming dynasty was the second to the last imperial dynasty of China established in 1368 following the fall of Yuan dynasty. The imperial court of Ming kept a nationwide register of every subject---Ji (籍). This practice of registering population was inherited from the previous Yuan dynasty. Venetian traveler Marco Polo noticed a similar policy during his visit to Hangzhou. Ming government formalized the registration with the yellow booklet which records every member of a given family. In addition, there was the white booklet which records the taxation of a family.

The policy of Colored population statistics of the Yuan dynasty was inherited by Ming and reformed. The numerous categories of commoners were reduced into only 3 categories. Soldier, Commoners, and Craftsmen. These castes were hereditary and fixed. Moving from one category to another was virtually impossible. Subcategories of the three main categories were more specific and profession-based. According to Taiwanese historian Cai Shishan, there were also salt refiners which were independent from other 3 categories.

Gentries during the Ming dynasty belong to the caste of commoners. There were two types of gentries. Those who passed the entry-level exam of the imperial exam were called Shengyuan (生員). All Shengyuan receive a fixed amount of allowance from the imperial court. The average amount of allowance ranges from 18 tael to 12 taels. The rest of the gentries mainly earned their living by teaching in private schools as mentors.

Farmers during the Ming dynasty had two groups. Self-sustained farmers accounted for 10% of all farmers while tenants farmers of wealthy landlords made up as much as 90%. They had more burdens and gained less harvest than self-sustained farmers.

Craftsmen were severely exploited by the government. They had to provide free services upon the demand of the imperial court without any reward. The two groups of Craftsmen are: Official craftsmen who directly worked for the court and Common craftsmen who provide paid services for others.

In the Ming dynasty, the Royal house was a large and special social stratum. The royal house of Ming includes any descendants of Emperor Taizu of Ming and his nephew Prince Jingjiang Zhu Shouqian. Emperor Taizu had 26 sons and 19 of them had offspring. With the line of Prince Jingjiang, the royal house consists of 20 different cadet branches. Members of the royal house were not allowed to have an ordinary life by laboring. All the expenditures of the royal house were paid by the money taken from the annual tax revenue collected from commoners. Additional perks such as legal privileges and luxury items were given as gifts by the imperial court. In the middle of the 17th century, the population of the royal house was so large that their living expenditures had taken up to 225.79% of the annual tax revenue causing a virtual bankruptcy of the government.

Qing dynasty

In the Qing dynasty, the population could be divided into five classes. The top class was the emperor and his immediate family. After that came the gentry (officials of the government). Next came the agriculturalists, landlords, farmers and peasants. Then the artisans and merchants. In last place came the lower classes of vagabonds and criminals. For centuries China had developed its system of social stratification based on the theoretical principles of Confucian philosophy.

By the late 18th century, the system was largely fixed, giving political power at the national, provincial and local levels as well as status to a small number of men who after spending years in elaborate, expensive study, were able to pass extremely difficult written tests in Confucian philosophy. The highest level was known as the "gentry" or the literati. Their numbers grew from 1.1 million in 1850 to 1.5 million in 1900.  The exams were the route whereby Han Chinese had access to high government office, which was otherwise largely monopolized by the small Manchu governing minority. The exams became more difficult, and more arbitrary as shown by the notorious "Eight-legged essay".  The vast majority of candidates wasted their years on expensive preparation as they failed again and again.  Only wealthy families could afford the investment, and for the great majority it did not pay off.  Increasingly the richest  families instead purchased their certificates of high status.  The elite was closed for practical purposes, and those who failed became often very frustrated and even led rebellions. For example, Hong Xiuquan (1813-1864) repeatedly failed, despite innate talents that enabled him to study Christianity in serious fashion and go on to form and lead the greatest rebellion in the 19th century world. Some of his top officials had also failed the exams such as Feng Yunshan and Hong Rengan. Yuan Shikai came from a literary elite but he failed his exams; his family purchased a military command for him and he rose to the top of the military and in 1912 became president of China. The civil service exams were almost ended in the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898 but the reactionaries won out. The system was finally abolished in  1905.

Gentry

Gentry or Mandarins were government officials. Most Gentry owned land, which was where most of their income came from. For other gentry the main source of income was from their government service. There was a large increase in the gentry class following the victory of the Hunan Army over Taiping in 1864, as many people were given quasi-official titles. Many took official local administrative positions. Others used their military rewards to purchase land and also join the gentry class.

Social-bureaucrats were the officialdom of Qing China. They had the responsibilities of organizing public works projects and had a crucial role in the management of society. Social-bureaucrats wore distinctive clothing, including black gowns with blue borders and a multitude of rank insignia. Commoners addressed them with honorific titles and they received a high status along with favorable legal treatment.

Agriculture

Far below the Mandarins/literati came the 90% of the population who lived by agriculture, from poor tenant farmers to rich landlords. Many were very poor tenants or day laborers, others especially in the southern provinces were better off and more secure by owning their land. Confucians praised agriculturalists as honest men who provided the nation's food. Famines and floods were serious risks. To forestall local rebellions the Qing government established an elaborate system to protect against famines and other disasters such as epidemics. It was built around a granary system, distributing free or subsidized grain during distress.  This system was largely destroyed during the Taiping rebellion of the 1850s, leaving the population vulnerable. The introduction of sweet potatoes reduced excess hunger and reduced the propensity to revolt.

After suppressing the Taiping rebellion by the mid-1860s, the national government worked to relieve distress, stabilize society and improve farming. It reduced taxes and required corvée labor, reclaimed land, and promoting irrigation. After 1900 the government set up rural associations that published newspapers and instructional pamphlets for farmers set, up agricultural schools, held local training sessions, as well as agricultural exhibitions,. Programs to continue water conservation and forest station projects continued. The reforms in agriculture were one dimension of a vigorous last-minute effort by the Qing government to rapidly reform education, the military, and local administration.

Artisans, merchants and workers
Despite the workers' lower status, they often earned more than peasants. Artisans and workers often worked directly for the state or gentry. Merchants were ranked lower because they were seen as unproductive leeches by the Confucians.   Merchants could include anyone from street peddlers to entrepreneurs with high influence and wealth. They were assumed to thrive by unethical business practices. They would bribe government officials or use profit-sharing to gain funding. Merchant families could use this wealth to pay for their sons' training for the civil service exams and thus jump to the high levels.

Lower classes

The lower classes of ordinary people were divided into two categories: one of them the good "commoner" people, the other the "mean" people. Slaves, Servants, Prostitutes, Entertainers, Low Level Government Employees and Military Forces were part of the mean class. The soldiers were called a necessary evil, and civilians were placed in command to keep the military from dominating society. Those who worked in entertainment were given a special status that allowed for them to be punished severely without consequence. The mean people were heavily discriminated against, forbidden to take the Imperial Examination, and mean and good people could not marry each other.

During the early Qing dynasty, hereditary slavery was a common practice that declined quickly. Slave girls(婢女), were largely sold and bought through contractual agreements where they would serve for a certain number of years.

Military Class and the Merchants
In the Qing dynasty, the widespread White Lotus Rebellion, whose participants were primarily landless people squeezed out because of commercialization, and the consequent battles destroyed the local agricultural economy. The rebellion at the same time stimulated the Qing government to initiate local militarization. The military organization was funded on its own and stayed autonomous from the central. This militarization process led to the rise of the "military-predatory elite class," which impeded the funding of industrial firms and sucked a considerable amount of surplus in funding on military means. Furthermore, rebellions, including the Taiping Rebellion, harmed the entrepreneurial class, such as merchants' local network.

The Republic Era (1911 to 1949)
After 1911, China entered the Warlord Era. During this time, industrialization was slow to non-existent; between the years 1920 and 1949, the industrial sector had only increased by less than three million members, mainly women, and children working in cotton mills. The main changes in the social structure were the military.

Many laborers were hired to work on the various construction projects at this time. A small portion of the working class were apprentices. They were trained to work in the trades by masters, but were treated similarly to slave girls. Upon reaching the end of the apprenticeship, they were allowed to leave their masters and find work by themselves.

In 1924, the Soviet Union helped Sun Yat-sen rebuild the Nationalist Kuomintang, GMT, and KMT military force, most notably through the Military Academy, an island on Pearl River near Guangzhou. Many military leaders of the following decades were Huangpu graduates, including Lin Biao, as well as nationalist Chinese generals.

Rural Society
Historian Prasenjit Duara coins the cultural nexus of power to characterize the power dynamics in rural North China. The network of rural cultural institutions, including lineage and religions, legitimized local gentry to institutionalize their interpersonal privileges and achieved grassroots autonomy. However, this power structure was disintegrated during the first half of the twentieth century as the Nationalist government expanded its fiscal power over local communities by establishing new state agencies to collect the tax. Confronted with the heavy burden of the various taxes, the protective brokerage, the gentry who used to collect tax in a sustainable way, retreated from the rural governance and gave their way to the entrepreneurial brokerage, i.e., the local bullies, who collected tax for-profit and impaired the ecology of the rural economy. This process destroyed the alliance among the state, local elites, and rural people without establishing a new system to replace the long-existing power nexus.

Peasant economy also persisted throughout the Republic era. According to Hung, Despite all the economic and social changes happening in the late Qing and Republican era, the peasant economy, particularly in the form of handicraft and household cotton industry, continued to prevail and dominate the rural areas.

Urban Workforce
In the urban workplace, native-place origins of workers were closely related to the job opportunities. In Shanghai, people with different native-place origins fell into different industries and occupations. Examples were carpenters from Canton and coppersmith from Ningbo. For refugee migrants from the countryside who had fewer native-place bonds and skillsets, they often found affiliation in gang activities and developed community solidarity. Strikes often happened in waves. The May Fourth Movement marked one substantial increase in labor strikes in Shanghai and later culminated again in 1937 at the beginning of the Japanese invasion. Strikes again increased during the Civil War period because of the rising inflation.

Family and Gender
Family structure went through a significant transformation during the Republican era. Since the late Qing, and especially during the May Fourth Movement, scholars and social activists cast doubts on the utility of the existing large family structure. Some theorized families of big sizes and senior authority as a social problem impeding the agenda of social development. Wu Guanyin, an official at Beiyang government and former international student in Japan, harshly criticized the inequality in large families and its disadvantages for the whole society. In an article published in 1915, he pointed out that in large families where adult sons and their core family members still lived together with their brothers without dividing family property, the male elders had considerable authority to manage family affairs and enjoyed various privileges in social and legal life. He blamed large families for corruption and bribes, claiming that profiting one's own family (mou jia) is in opposition to profiting the state (mou guo). Wu's claim was one of the major intellectual efforts to point out and attempt to solve family problems (jiating wenti) in the Republican period. Exposed to the Western ideal of conjugal families, radicals actively promoted the transformation of family structure. They urged damping the large families where members relied heavily on one another and were placed into an unequal generational hierarchy in an effort to advocate small conjugal families to comply with the Western model.

Gender equality was also a popular topic among radicals during the May Fourth and New Culture Movement. The Kuomintang party further promoted marriage freedom and gender equality in Legal Reforms. The 1930 Civil Code perceived both men and women as equal citizens and granted women more agency to negotiate their interests in marriage and family. Women were entitled to inherit property from their fathers for the first time. The law also elevated mothers to the equal status of fathers in terms of rights over children. In legal practice, many female litigants utilized the new legal codes to defend their personal interests.

Women also made up for a considerable proportion of the entire workforce in urban areas. In Shanghai, most cotton-mill workers were women. Female labor was also important workforce in other industries, including flour mills, carpet making, and cigarette rolling. There were also native-place divisions among urban female workers.

Similar to the gender line, generational hierarchy also went through significant transformation under the Legal Reforms. Instead of preaching "parents can never be wrong," the new criminal and civil codes granted children more agency and treated both children and parents as equal citizens. The Kuomintang party-state changed the former generational hierarchy, backed by the principle of filial piety, to mutual legal bonds between parents and children.

Mao Era and the transition (1949 to 1978)
Entering the People's Republic of China (PRC) era, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), adopting the Soviet style, transformed the state economy into the centrally planned economy. Both urban and rural areas underwent significant social, political, and economic changes brought by land reform and collectivization. Instead of judging through the amount of owned property, the state imposed new standards to determine one's social status. The standards included one's political class, urban or rural household registration, gender, and ethnic classification.

In 1949, in the wake of the communist victory in the Chinese civil war, Chinese society experienced massive upheaval. The communist revolutionaries who had eschewed capitalism and elitism now became the rich ruling class they had sought to overthrow. CCP cadres became the new upper class. Those who were included in this social class made up approximately 20% of the urban working class. Not only were they given benefits, but also provided with special training for their careers. The misuse and manipulation of the ration system by members of the cadre class threatened to change them into a new class of privileged bureaucrats and technicians, mere descendants of the pre-revolutionary ruling class of cadre technocrats and elected representatives of the old proletariat. Whereas in the past, their position had been accessed primarily through acceptance to the best schools, now cadre status came to give them access to materials and options not fairly distributed amongst all. Housing had always been in demand in China, particularly in the larger cities, and cadres were protected from the intense competition for living space.

Political class and rural land reform
In the countryside, the landlord class was eliminated during the land reform. In 1959, there were ten million state cadres, thirty-five million state workers, and two hundred million peasants. Chinese society was typical of agrarian societies because the peasant class composed the majority of the population.

Class (jieji) in the context of early PRC history carried both economic and political connotations. According to the party's official document about rural class, "landlords (dizhu)" refer to people who possess land but do not work by themselves or who only do labor incidentally and live primarily on exploiting other people's labor. The category of "landlords" also includes the butlers of landlord households because they helped the rich "landlords" collect money and exploit others. "Rich peasants (funong)" are those who often depend on the exploitation of the other's labor as part of or a significant part of their sources of living. They usually have relatively high-quality production tools. One important indicator is that "rich peasants" hire long-term laborers (changgong) to work for them. "Middle peasants (zhongnong)" may or may not possess land, although most of them do, and they possess a considerable amount of production tools. "Middle peasants" live on their own labor entirely or almost entirely and have a decent amount of production tools.  As a result, they slightly exploit or do not exploit others at all. In comparison, "poor peasants (pinnong)" have less or no land, fewer production tools, and are often exploited. "Workers (gongren)" barely have any land or production tools and need to trade the entire or most of their labor for a living.

However, in practice, the use of the class labels often deviated from its definitions in Land Reform law and policies and often carried highly politicized purposes. During the Land Reform, people classified as "rich peasants" or "landlords" sometimes did not really meet the definition, but cadres arbitrarily labeled them. Cadres also assigned class labels based on the conditions of one's earlier generations. Lineage relations were also a critical consideration for cadres and villagers to label their neighbors as "rich peasants" or "landlords." Overall, the practical implementation of class labeling still remains under-researched for now.

During the Land Reform Movement, China substantially improved income inequality by redistributing land and other property. This was accompanied by social chaos and the consequent mass repression of chaos and killings. The Land Reform targeted eradicating landlords and taking over their land, while increasing the landownership by poor peasants. Still, to improve the overall rural incomes, the party helped protect and preserve the rich peasant economy. According to a rural income survey by China's National Bureau of Statistics, the amount of agricultural capital for different classes generally increased from the Land Reform to 1954. For rich peasants, arable land increased from 25.1 to 31.1 mu per household, and draft animals increased from 114.9 to 184.1 per 100 household.

Some soviet scholars, including Chaianov, argue that rural stratification is largely based on generations and is thus a demographic question, which is different from the Marxist definition of class.

Following the implementation of land reforms, Mao instituted a process of collectivization in response to the selling of land by peasants to the new generation of rich landowners. Afraid of creating a new landlord class, Mao instituted a system of communes where land was supposed to be worked equally by peasants. His idea was to capitalize on the sheer number of peasants and effectively produce a surplus harvest that would help industrialization. This was known as the Great Leap Forward, which was a failure and resulted in the deaths of twenty to thirty million peasants.

Theoretically speaking, classes differences should be eliminated after the Land Reform. On the eighth Party Congress in 1956, Deng Xiaoping officially acknowledged that the existing definition of class status no longer fit the practical situations and thus re-defined the class system according to both economic status as well as political background:"The distinction hitherto made in admitting new members has been removed because former classifications of social status have lost or are losing their original meaning. Both before the Seventh Congress and for a considerable period afterward it was essential to have different admission procedures for applicants of different social status; this served a very good purpose then. In recent years, however, the situation has basically changed. The difference between workers and office employees is now only a matter of division of labor within the same class. Coolies and farm laborers have disappeared. Poor and middle peasants have all become members of agricultural producers' co-operatives, and before long the distinction between them will become merely a matter of historical interest. With the introduction of the conscription system, revolutionary soldiers no longer constitute an independent social stratum. The vast majority of intellectuals have now come over politically to the side of the working class, and a rapid change is taking place in their family background. The conditions under which the urban poor and professional people existed as independent social strata have virtually been eliminated. Every year large numbers of peasants and students become workers, large numbers of workers, peasants and their sons and daughters join the ranks of intellectuals and office workers, large numbers of peasants, students, workers and office workers join the army and become revolutionary soldiers, while large numbers of revolutionary soldiers return to civilian life as peasants, students, workers or office workers. What is the point, then, of classifying these social strata into two different categories? Even if we were to try to devise a classification, how could we make it clear and unambiguous?"The party's emphasis on class line corresponded to Mao's criticism of the Khrushchev regime's "restoration of capitalism" in a famous news article published in 1964. One crucial aspect of the Khrushchev regime's "restoration of capitalism" was that it forgot the class struggle. In contrast, during various Socialist Education Campaigns, class line and class struggle in China were radicalized. The evil "Four Elements" targeted "landlords," "rich peasants," "counterrevolutionaries," and "bad elements." Despite that, people in practice sometimes held that class status could be inherited from the fathers. During the 1960s, people from bad class background, such as landlords and rich peasants, found it hard to get married. During the Cultural Revolution, although the party publicly refuted the bloodline theory of class status (that the family from which a person was born in decided one's class status), people still closely associated class status with family origin.

The official administration system was of four hierarchical tiers: provincial municipalities, districts, counties, and townships, from top to down. County-level cadres mostly did not get paid from the official payroll system.

Urban-rural divide
The early PRC era saw a widened urban-rural disparity. The enforcement of the household registration system (hukou) classified Chinese citizens into the agricultural and non-agricultural population. The system made all migration from the countryside to the city require approval. People with urban registrations enjoyed a series of privileged access to social welfare that the general agricultural population could not get, including better access to food and other consumer goods, low-cost accommodation, education, and other public welfare. However, these urban privileges were based on the state's extraction of resources from the countryside. The state organized rural people into people's communes and implemented the Unified Purchase and Sale system to compel the rural people to sell grain at a fixed low price to the state. The unequal distribution ultimately led to significant differences in people's living standards and social welfare between urban and rural areas. In the late 1950s to early 1960s, the compulsory state procurement of grain under the unified purchase and sale system prioritized urban over rural areas in allocating basic necessities. The net state procurement kept increasing from 14.9 percent in 1956 to 28 percent in 1959. The urban-biased system of food production and rationing system left a much-starved countryside. This is known as the Great Famine.

Apart from unequal access to social welfare and basic necessities, urban bias also lay in the pattern of state investment. The state targeted less at the development of agriculture than industrialization. Although the state investment in agriculture increased during the Famine, it went through a general downward trend in the 1960s and the 1970s. Income and consumption of the urban population increased faster than rural dwellers until the late 1970s. From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, the income and consumption gap was widened significantly. Economist Thomas Rawski estimates the ratio of urban-rural per capita income to be 3.4 to 1 or 5.9 to 1 in 1978. Economist Carl Riskin estimates the ratio to be between 2.5 and 3. Rural people generally had to acquire a more austere taste for luxury products such as bikes, wristwatches, and sewing machines. The World Bank reports the income ratio to be 2.2 to 1 and the consumption ratio to be about 2.6 to 1 with higher ratios for luxury goods, such as watches, bicycles, and television sets.

Another important aspect of the rural-urban divide during the Mao era was the reduction of urban population after the Famine. High-ranking party leaders, including Chen Yun and Li Xiannnian realized that food consumption of the urban population had been putting too much pressure on the grain production in the countryside. As a result, the party implemented the downsizing policy to send migrants and unwanted urban populations back to communes and successfully limited and deceased the urban population. During the process of downsizing, some urban residents tried to avoid leaving the cities by feigning medical issues or threatening to die. Still, from late 1960 to 1963, the total population dispatched from urban to rural areas was up to 26 million in total. The readjustment of the urban-rural population reinforced the existing urban-biased social dynamic.

The "dual" social structure pushed people to migrate internally from the countryside to the urban areas. Yet, after the famine, the state imposed stricter migration control. There were limited choices for people to realize the upward mobility from rural to urban registration through military service, urban employment, marriage, and the college entrance exam. Yet, despite strict control, hidden and illicit migrations were still ongoing. People negotiated with the hukou system, and many of them traveled between urban and rural boundary. Some people managed to get away from rural registration in the countryside by working on state-owned farms or utilizing their personal relations to stay in the urban areas even without urban registration.

During the Cultural Revolution, the composition of society changed again. Schools were closed and many youths were sent down to the countryside putatively to learn from the peasants. Concern for peasants was reflected in the rural medical and educational services known as barefoot doctors and barefoot teachers. The life expectancy of peasants increased from less than forty years before 1949 to more than sixty years in the 1970s. At the same time, peasants were still the most illiterate, most powerless, and poorest social class.

Social stratification in cities
In cities, the workplace was also hierarchical. In the early 1950s, most workforce was employed by the private sector. Later by 1956, The party eliminated the private-owned enterprises and transferred them into the state-owned and collectively owned enterprises. Generally speaking, people working in state-owned enterprises enjoyed more social benefits and better job security than those working in collectively owned enterprises. Likewise, heavy industry was prioritized over the light industry, and manual labor over intellectual labor. Workers with longer working experience enjoyed higher salaries and better retirement benefits.

After the Famine, to reduce the burden of state payroll, a dual system in the workplace was established through building a "second-class" system of workers with less pay and other benefits. From 1960 to 1963, the number of workers in the state-owned enterprises decreased, while the number of those working in the collectively owned enterprises increased. The Labor Department identified three categories of workers: workers under long-term employment, temporary urban workers, and peasant-workers. Similar to urban workers on temporary contracts, peasant-workers were also recruited to work in the short term, but the state considered the peasant-workers as part of the rural community. The government set low wages for peasant-workers and prohibited them from joining the permanent urban workforce. In the 1960s, the group of temporary workers, including both urban temporary workers and peasant-workers, kept growing. The number of permanent workers reached 33 million in 1965.

People in the urban work units were also divided into workers and cadres. College students fell into the category of professional cadres. In the Republic era, most university students were from wealthy families closely tied to the gentry or merchant class. After the establishment of the PRC, the background of university students became more diversified. The party recruited more students from poor family backgrounds to higher education. Based on sociologist Deborah Davis's interview, of the sixteen people who were professional workers back in the 1950s, over half of them came from the rural household, urban working-class families, and small business families.

Still, the state's stricter control over migration and household registration made social mobility from the countryside to cities less plausible. Before the strict migration control, it was easier for rural migrants to gradually establish themselves from the beginning as temporary workers or small business holders. After the state systematically imposed household registration, rural migrants had fewer chances to gain footholds in cities and achieve upward social mobility through migration. The birthplace, in cities or the countryside, became crucial to one's status in the social hierarchy.

Meanwhile, under the state monology over economic and social capitals, upper-middle classes in cities lost most of their access to resources to achieve mobility. Under the urban work units, social life was closely tied to the workplace. The former upper middle classes were no longer allowed to establish independent associations or other professional organizations to expand professional social networks and set their distinct class boundaries. During the Three-anti and Five-anti Movement, the distinct lifestyle of upper middle classes was labeled "bourgeois crimes." The Cultural Revolution intensified the tendency of demoralizing the refined lifestyle.

Provincial level spatial inequality
One notable feature of the urban structure was the spatial imbalance. The early 1950s witnessed a decrease in spatial inequality as the party endeavored to close the gap of income among different regions. For example, the party built most of the industrial plants, under the Soviet help, in inland areas instead of coastal areas, and the former treaty ports were not prioritized in the First five-year plan. Such efforts to level spatial inequality continued during the Great Leap Forward, but the regional inequality persisted. Compared with the 1952 provincial ranking, the richest provinces maintained their top rankings in 1964, while the poorest stayed at the bottom.

Spatial disparities among regions persisted from 1963 onward. Particularly, provinces with higher industrial investment rates and better-established industrial bases had the fastest growth rates. Many of these provinces' advantages came from history. Examples are Liaoning, the city formerly under Japanese colonial rule, and Shanghai, the city with an exceptional economic foundation in the nineteenth century. Even with the party's effort to bridge the developmental gap through the Third Front investment and the Down to the Countryside Movement, regional economic disparity continued.

There are two general trends from 1963 to 1978. First, regional disparities overall increased. Variation in GDP per capita for all jurisdictions increased from 0.71 to 0.99. Beijing and Shanghai grew more than two times than western provinces. Second, if excluding the large cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Liaoning) from the calculation, variation in GDP per capita decreased from 0.36 to 0.26. Although still substantial by 1978, spatial disparity among the remaining provinces improved. Growth rates of many inland provinces which benefitted from rural industrialization and the Third Front Construction, such as Gansu, Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia, exceeded the average.

Data from Chinese National Statistical Bureau show that at the end of the Mao era, China's industrialization largely focused on three regions. Manchuria, the former Japanese colony, inherited a considerable industrial base from the Republic era and continued benefitting from its rich natural resources. The second one was the broad area centering Shanghai, including the Zhejiang-Jiangsu region, which was also historically advantaged. The third concentration included Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and western Sichuan, which was largely historically marginalized but gained fast development through the party's Third Front policy.

Family and gender
Family structure during the Mao era also changed. The marriage law in 1950 granted more agency to women for marriage and divorce and advocated equal relations between husbands and wives. It prohibited concubinage and child brides. Following the path of the Nationalist government, the state also promoted an equal relationship between parents and children. The marriage law reinforced the mutual legal bonds for both parents and children. Not only did it stipulate the children's obligation to provide old-age support to their parents but it also emphasized parents' legal duty of raising and supporting their children. Meanwhile, the new social systems that re-arranged people into work units or communes altered the parent-child relations and weakened the historically significant parental authority. Remunerated by work points, family members became less financially dependent on each other.

Women's liberation was an important political agenda of the party. Particularly, the party emphasized women's participation in production in achieving gender equality. The state depicted divergent, even conflicting images of women, with some emphasizing the productive skills while some the domestic role of women, to meet various economic and labor situations. In urban areas, women and men nominally were remunerated equally, but in reality, men often secured jobs with better payment and more social prestige. In rural areas, more women were mobilized to participate in agricultural production. Historians show that in China's collective farm, women were, on the one hand, mobilized to cultivate grain and cotton under the notion of gender equality and, on the other hand, constrained by gendered division of labor, were burdened with domestic labor. Some women had to bear physical suffering as a result of having to continue working hard shortly after they gave birth. In big water constructions, rural women had to do heavy manual labor and, at the same time, took housework responsibilities. The party forcefully transformed rural women into productive roles while overlooking their reproductive responsibilities and health. Even when the state sought to monopolize the cotton industry under the unified purchase and sale system, rural women continuously engaged in handicraft, weaving and spanning to make cloths for household usage as they had been historically doing. Apart from working for the collective farms and other construction work, they crouched the shoulders and worked overtime late in the night after their husbands and children went to sleep.

The Maoist state generally did not outlaw third genders, but officially it also ignored LGBTQ. However, homosexuality in practice was usually demoralized and could face severe political consequences. In some struggle sessions during the Cultural Revolution or self-reflections, homosexuality was often referred to as a crime or serious problem. For example, a young cadre in a factory accused of homosexuality faced fierce political criticism.

Four occupations

In a speech made shortly after the communist's victory in 1949, Mao Zedong claimed that Chinese society had four distinct social classes; this is often cited as the reason why the Chinese flag has four small stars on it. The large fifth star, which is surrounded by the four smaller stars, is meant to represent the Communist Party. In his On the People's Democratic Dictatorship speech he defined the Chinese people as consisting of four social classes, also referred to in Asian cultures as the four occupations ()  ("the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie". Mao made the claim that these classes had been unified by the revolution, but severe class stratification still existed in post 1949 China, especially when comparing the rights ordinary citizen to the extreme privileges afforded to the elites of the Chinese Communist party.

Before the economic reform of 1978, the time period between the mid-1950s to 1977 saw a shift in China's focus as they began to remove outdated labels and thousands were granted working class status. The concept of "two classes and one stratum", a Soviet theory, was soon introduced and was composed of the peasant class, working class, and the intellectual stratum. During this time, the number of individuals who were part of the working class increased greatly. Media also began to spread propaganda about the urban working class that painted them as superior, naming them the "leading class". Soon after, people in society began to mirror this sentiment as the respect for the proletariat increased. In terms of the peasant class, the number of farmers increased year by year, despite the industrialization going on in China. The intellectual stratum consisted of those with high school or university education, making up a small portion of the population. Due to the vague definition of "intellectual", it is difficult to know exactly how many people were in this stratum. However, it is estimated that there were around 5 million people.

Social elites and the emergence of new class
Social elites in the Mao era generally fell into two different groups. The "new elites" mostly gained their social status as the "revolutionary cadres." The new elite group also included revolutionary soldiers and children of revolutionary martyrs. They mostly came from poor rural families with limited education experience and mostly rose to power during the wartime. Scholars find that 80 percent of the party members in 1949 came from peasant households and that most of them were of little cultural capital accumulated through education. The "old elites" were better-educated people from wealthy families. They were under serious attack in the first a few years after 1949 and were usually labeled as the exploiting class. Although politically despised, the old elites still kept considerable advantages in knowledge and skills. The political power structure was Red-over-Expert. People with various managerial knowledge and technical expertise were subordinate to the leadership of red cadres. The two groups of elites were of different social origins, but they also had overlaps, such as the party members who held a college degree. Both the old and new elites only consisted of a small proportion of the entire population. The new elites made up less than 1 percent of the population. The old rural elites made up 4.3 percent, and the old urban elites made up 1.4 percent. Yet, they both stayed at the top of the social hierarchy.

In the first years of the PRC era, the two had sharp conflicts, but gradually converged when they were reproducing their elite positions. People from the new elite families could easily reproduce their social status by passing on their political credentials and background to their children. At the same time, political origins and family background provided the new elites with better access to education due to the political consideration behind school admissions. Also, old elites with more cultural capital also gained advantages in political recruitment into the party membership, Youth Pioneers and the Youth League. As the two groups started to converge, a new class emerged as technocrats. They enjoyed both political and cultural capital.

Mao and other top party leaders made efforts to level class differences in three aspects. Land Reform was a systematic endeavor to remove unequal property ownership. The nation Socialist Education Campaign was targeted at making education more accessible to a broader range of the population. The efforts to level cultural capitals peaked during the Cultural Revolution. In terms of political leveling, the party targeted not only the old elites but also the cadres. In the mid-1960s, Mao himself warned the rise of a bureaucratic class who were detached from workers and peasants and betrayed the revolution. Mao's hostility towards party leaders motivated a more systematic and violent attack on the party officials later in the Cultural Revolution. Just as the new social class of the technocrats was emerging from the converge of the old and new elites, the leveling efforts destabilized the consolidation of this new class. Later, the Cultural Revolution completely disturbed the growth of the technocratic class. In the late Mao era, they were not mature or powerful but after the Cultural Revolution they became the dominating power of the state.

Ethnicity
Unlike the Soviet where Russians made up less than half of the population, in China, Han Chinese people made up more than 90 percent of the entire population. The party extended the concept of Chinese nation with only five races to fifty-six ethnic groups. Most non-Han minorities lived in rural and less developing areas.

Post Reform (1978 to 2000)
After the Chinese economic reform (Gaige Kaifang) policy was implemented in the late 1970s, the Communist system Mao had instituted disintegrated in the face of economic development. In the countryside, communes had disappeared by 1984. State-run enterprises known as danweis began to lay off workers, "smashing the iron rice bowl" because of their expense and inefficiency. The previous "two classes and one stratum" theory underwent many changes during this time as both the working and peasant class were divided further. However, the peasant class decreased in size while the working class saw significant growth.

The years leading up to the 21st century brought great economic growth and industrialization for China, but this growth did not translate to the rate of social development as the income gap between urban and rural areas of China continued to widen. By 1993, approximately 22.4% of the working class population accounted for 51.8% of China's GDP. By this point, the social structure was no longer as hierarchical in comparison to the early years of the reform.

In 1992, social inequality became a large topic of debate, as wealth continued to accumulate within a small minority population of the country. This was a result of the corruption of bureaucratic capitalism which, in turn, lead to the middle working class having access to very few resources. The imbalance of social structure at this time became evident as both the working and peasant class were marginalized.

The working class at this time was still divided, but a new stratum soon came into existence. This consisted of those who had lost their jobs, those who had retired, as well as migrant workers. Migrant workers were generally underpaid and had poor living conditions, but there were some that were able to start small businesses. Due to the difference in financial and career circumstances of different migrant workers, migrant workers spanned across multiple classes.

21st century
The current social structure of China relies on strata, which are defined by an individual's economic and social status. There are a total of ten strata which, in a general sense, include government officials, private and small business owners, industrial workers, agricultural laborers, and the unemployed. By 2016, agricultural laborers made up only approximately 40% of China's working class. Service workers made up the largest portion of China's working class, surpassing the industrial workers.

The working middle class at this time was seen to be the leading class as they gained more economic resources and production power. With the increase of people in the working class, they were seen to be representative of China's productive forces as well as the people who would improve the overall economy of the country. There was also a positive viewpoint in China surrounding the middle class as they were seen to earn a decent amount of money and were well qualified for their positions.

Since 2002, China has been actively engaged in the deliberate expansion of its middle class. This endeavor has been motivated by various aims, encompassing the promotion of consumption, maintaining social stability, and acknowledging the middle class as a fundamental element within the state. The Chinese middle class encompasses individuals who are private entrepreneurs as well as those who belong to the managerial and professional sectors. According to surveys, it has been observed that around 66% of private entrepreneurs have prior experience working within the party-state apparatus. Additionally, approximately 20% of these entrepreneurs have previously held official positions or leadership roles within either the party or the government. Approximately 40 percent of entrepreneurs are affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, engaging in various political endeavors such as assuming positions in representative bodies and participating in local government associations. Numerous studies on the middle classes in China consistently reveal the absence of political opposition towards the regime and a perceived level of endorsement for a party-state.

The 21st century also saw a decrease in the percentage of peasants in proportion to the overall working class as the economic reform gave them more freedom in their professional lives. Many young people living in rural communities also began to find it more appealing to attend university or find jobs in the city. There has been a major shift in the thinking of the youth, seen through the older ages of those working in farming. Finding individuals under the age of 40 still working in agriculture is now much more difficult than it was before. Prior to the 21st century, social class was primarily determined by identity rather than employment and education. This reform presented citizens, especially rural workers, with more social mobility and choice.

See also

 Four occupations
 Comprador#China, business owner
 Royal and noble ranks of the Qing dynasty

Notes

References
China Cadre Statistics Fifty Years, 1949–1998, 1.
China Labor Statistical Yearbook 1998, 9., 17.
China Statistical Yearbook 2002, 120–121.
China Statistical Yearbook 2004, 126-127 and 150.
People's Daily Overseas Edition, 10/11/2002, 1.
The figures of cadre from 1966–1970, as well as 2002–2003 are estimated.
From 1958 to 1977, the figure of peasant workers was around 20 million. However, China's official statistics had begun to count them only from 1978.
From 1979 to 1993, the number of cadres increased from eighteen million to thirty-seven million.

Further reading

Historical
 Bastid-Bruguiere, Marianne. "Currents of social change." The Cambridge History of China: 1800-1911 vol 11 part 2 (1980): pp 535–602.
 Chan, Wellington K. K. "Government, merchants and industry to 1911." The Cambridge History of China: 1800-1911 vol  11. Part 2 (1980) pp: 416–462.

 Chang, Chung-li. The Chinese gentry: studies on their role in nineteenth-century Chinese society (1955) online
 Ch'u T'ung-tsu. Han Social Structure (Washington U. Press, 1972)
 Ch'u T'ung-tsu. "Chinese Class Structure and its Ideology" in Chinese Thought and Institutions, ed. J. K. Fairbank, 1957, online pp 235–250.
 Duara, Prasenjit, State Involution: A Study of Local Finances in North China, 1911-1935, in Comparative Studies in Society and History, 29#1 (1987), pp. 132–161,
 Elman, Benjamin A. "Political, social, and cultural reproduction via civil service examinations in late imperial China." Journal of Asian Studies (1991): 7-28. online
 Faure, David. China and Capitalism: A History of Business Enterprise in Modern China (Hong Kong UP,  2006), covers 1500 to 1999; 136pp
 Faure, David. The rural economy of pre-liberation China: trade expansion and peasant livelihood in Jiangsu and Guangdong, 1870 to 1937 (Oxford UP, 1989).
 Guo, Yongqin, et al. "A View of the Occupational Structure in Imperial and Republican China (1640–1952)." Australian Economic History Review 59.2 (2019): 134-158 online.
 Hao, Yen-p'ing. The comprador in nineteenth century China: bridge between East and West (Harvard UP. 1970) online.
 Heijdra, Martin J. "The socioeconomic development of rural China during the Ming," in The Cambridge History of China  Volume 8 The Ming Dynasty, 1368 - 1644, Part 2 edited by Denis Twitchett and Frederick W. Mote (1998) pp 417–578.
 Hung, Ho-fung. "Agricultural Revolution and Elite Reproduction in Qing China: The Transition to Capitalism Debate Revisited" American Sociological Review (2008) 73#4 pp. 569–588 online
 Mann, Susan. Local merchants and the Chinese bureaucracy, 1750-1950  (Stanford UP, 1987).
 Marsh, Robert Mortimer. Mandarins: The Circulation of Elites in China, 1600-1900 (Ayer, 1980).
 Naquim, Susan and Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, eds. Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (Yale UP, 1989).
 Rowe, William T. "Social Stability and Social Change" in  The Cambridge History of China  Volume 9 Part One: The Ch'ing Empire to 1800, edited by Willard J. Peterson (2002) pp  473–562.
 Tackett, Nicolas. "Violence and the 1 Percent: The Fall of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy in Comparison to the Fall of the French Nobility." American Historical Review 124.3 (2019): 933–937.
 Tackett, Nicolas Olivier, "The Transformation Of Medieval Chinese Elites (850–1000 C.E.)" (PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 2006) online
 Wang, Di. "Study on family rules in the Ming and Qing dynasties." Open Journal of Social Sciences 2.11 (2014): 132+ online
 Zhang, Qing. "The discursive construction of the social stratification order in reforming China." Journal of Language and Politics 9.4 (2010): 508–527.

Since 1949

 Bian, Yanjie. "Chinese social stratification and social mobility." Annual Review of Sociology 28.1 (2002): 91-116 online.
 Fang, Yiping, Zhilin Liu, and Yulin Chen. "Housing Inequality in Urban China: Theoretical Debates, Empirical Evidences, and Future Directions." Journal of Planning Literature 35.1 (2020): 41-53 online.
 Goodman, David S. G. "Locating China's Middle Classes: social intermediaries and the Party-state." Journal of Contemporary China 25.97 (2016): 1-13 online.
Li Yi. The Structure and Evolution of Chinese Social Stratification (University Press of America. 2005.  excerpt
 Monkkonen, Paavo, Andre Comandon, and Jiren Zhu. "Economic segregation in transition China: evidence from the 20 largest cities." Urban Geography 38.7 (2017): 1039-1061 online.
 Watson, James L., ed. Class and social stratification in post-revolution China (Cambridge UP, 1984).
 Wu, Xiaogang. "Higher education, elite formation and social stratification in contemporary China: Preliminary findings from the Beijing College Students Panel Survey." Chinese Journal of Sociology 3.1 (2017): 3-31 online.
 Yeung, Wei-Jun Jean. "Higher education expansion and social stratification in China." Chinese Sociological Review 45.4 (2013): 54–80. online

External links
China from the Inside - 2006 PBS documentary. KQED Public Television and Granada Television for PBS, Granada International, and the BBC.
 China Social Statistical Yearbook 2016

History of agriculture in China
Social systems

Social structure of China


Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (born March 10, 1994), known professionally as Bad Bunny, is a Puerto Rican rapper, singer, and occasional Professional Wrestler. He is known as the "King of Latin Trap". Bad Bunny is the first non-English language act to be Spotify's most streamed artist of the year, and has led the list since 2020. He holds the all-time record for the biggest streaming year of any artist in Spotify history, generating over 18.5 billion streams in 2022.

Born and raised in Vega Baja, His 2016 song "Diles", led to a recording contract with Hear This Music. He went on to release songs such as "Soy Peor" and collaborate with Farruko, Karol G, Ozuna, and J Balvin. His 2018 single "Mia" featuring Drake and appearing on Cardi B's single "I Like It" alongside J Balvin, topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Bad Bunny's debut studio album, X 100pre (2018), peaked at number 11 on the U.S. Billboard 200, while his collaborative album with J Balvin, Oasis (2019), reached the top-ten. His second solo album, YHLQMDLG (2020), became the highest-charting all-Spanish album to appear on the Billboard 200 at the time. It was followed up with the compilation album Las que no iban a salir (2020).

 (2020), Bad Bunny's third solo album, became the first all-Spanish language album to top the Billboard 200. Its lead single, "Dákiti", reached the top-ten of the Hot 100. His fourth solo album, Un Verano Sin Ti (2022), spent 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and spawned four commercially successful singles. It is the first Spanish-language album to be nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Throughout his career, Bad Bunny has earned three Grammy Awards, four Latin Grammy Awards, eight Billboard Music Awards, and thirteen Lo Nuestro Awards. He was crowned Artist of the Year by Apple Music in 2022.

Outside of music, Bad Bunny performs in professional wrestling. He began making appearances on WWE programming in 2021 and made his in-ring debut at WrestleMania 37. He is a one-time WWE 24/7 Champion and has wrestled at the 2022 Royal Rumble and the 2023 Backlash pay-per-view events.

Early life
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio was born on March 10, 1994, and raised in the Almirante Sur barrio of Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. His father, Tito Martínez, was a truck driver, and his mother, Lysaurie Ocasio, is a retired schoolteacher. His parents had often listened to genres such as salsa, merengue, and pop ballads. He has two younger brothers, Bernie and Bysael. He has said, "I wasn't the kid who got involved in the streets. I liked to be at home with my family."

As a child, he attended church weekly with his devoutly Catholic mother and sang in the church choir until age 13. After leaving the choir, he developed an interest in the artists he heard on the radio, particularly Daddy Yankee and Héctor Lavoe. His stage name originally came from a time in which he was forced to wear a bunny costume and was angry about it.

Speaking about the Puerto Rican music industry, he stated, "I'm from Vega Baja, a small area that's not a metropolis like San Juan where the majority of the genre's artists have come from."

Music career

2013–2017: Early career beginnings
He started to write and create his own interpretations at the age of 14, until, in 2013, he began to publish his songs through SoundCloud, including "Get" in 2013, "Tentación" in 2014, "Just let me know" in 2015, among others. In 2016, his song "Diles" caught the attention of DJ Luian from SoundCloud who signed him to his record label, Hear this Music. His single "Soy Peor" reached number 19 on the Hot Latin Songs chart. Bad Bunny's May 2017 collaboration with Karol G, "Ahora Me Llama", reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart. It was listed on "Alt.Latino's Favorites: The Songs Of 2017" as one of the best Latin songs of 2017.

In the summer of 2017, Bad Bunny signed a booking deal with Cardenas Marketing Network (CMN) for several Latin American countries. Starting in November 2017, Bad Bunny hosted Beats 1's first Spanish-language show, Trap Kingz. The remix of "Te Boté" with Ozuna and Nicky Jam reached number one on the Hot Latin Songs chart.

2018–2019: Major breakthrough, X 100pre, and Oasis

In May 2018, American rapper Cardi B released a collaboration with Bad Bunny and J Balvin, "I Like It". On October 11, 2018, Bad Bunny released "Mia" with Drake, which reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100.

Bad Bunny released his debut album X 100pre on December 24, 2018, on Christmas Eve 2018 on Rimas Entertainment. At Metacritic, X 100pre received an average score of 84 based on five reviews. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian praised Bad Bunny's "off-kilter creativity".

In 2020, X 100pre was voted 447th in Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

On June 28, 2019, Bad Bunny released Oasis, an eight-song collaborative album with J Balvin. It peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Billboard US Latin Albums chart. In July 2019, he joined protests against governor Ricardo Rosselló. Bad Bunny and Residente released "" ("Sharpening the knives") during the demonstrations.

 2020–2021: YHLQMDLG, Las que no iban a salir, and El Último Tour Del Mundo
In February 2020, Bad Bunny was a guest performer at the Super Bowl LIV halftime show, headlined by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. Bad Bunny announced the album YHLQMDLG on February 27, 2020, during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and stated that it would be released on Leap Day 2020, namely February 29. The album's title stands for "Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana" (Spanish for "I Do What I Want") and features collaborations with Daddy Yankee, Yaviah, Jowell & Randy, Ñengo Flow, among other artist.

YHLQMDLG debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200, becoming the highest-charting all-Spanish album ever on the chart at the time. The album was met with critical acclaim, with the album's musical diversity being praised. "Vete" was released as the lead single of the album on November 22, 2019. The second single, "Ignorantes", with Panamanian singer Sech came out on February 14, 2020. In March 2020, Bad Bunny released the music video for "Yo Perreo Sola", in which the artist performs in drag. "Yo Perreo Sola" landed number one on the Billboard Latin Airplay chart, earning Bad Bunny his ninth No.1 on the chart in just over two years.

On April 4, 2020, he released the song "En Casita" on SoundCloud, which expressed solidarity towards others in quarantine due to COVID-19 and featured vocals from his girlfriend, Gabriela Berlingeri. On May 10, 2020, Bad Bunny released his first compilation Las que no iban a salir, without previous announcements. The compilation's title translates to "The Ones that Were Not Going to Come Out" and it contains previously unreleased or unfinished songs. The album features collaborations with Don Omar, Yandel, Zion & Lennox, Nicky Jam, and Jhay Cortez. Discussing the album's surprise release, Bad Bunny explained, "There was no real meaning behind it. I just thought, 'Damn. What people need is entertainment'. Bad Bunny had been filming his supporting role in Narcos: Mexico before filming was postponed due to the pandemic. It premiered in November 2021.

In July 2020, he appeared on the first digital cover of Playboy magazine as the first man to appear on the cover other than the magazine's founder, Hugh Hefner. The cover was shot by photographer Stillz in Miami, Florida, and the magazine includes a feature article entitled "Bad Bunny is Not Playing God." He also received the ASCAP Latin award for Songwriter of the Year. The following month, his song "Pero Ya No" appeared in an advertisement for politician Joe Biden's 2020 United States presidential election campaign. On September 20, 2020, Bad Bunny performed a surprise, live (via his YouTube channel and Uforia), free concert from atop a flatbed truck that looked like a subway car going through the streets of New York and ended at Harlem Hospital. In October 2020, Bad Bunny released the single "Dakiti", with Jhay Cortez, which topped the Billboard Global 200 and reached number five on the US Hot 100. The song is included on his third studio album, , which was released on November 27, 2020, and was described as a personal and ambitious record. It became the first all-Spanish language album to reach number one on the Billboard 200.

Bad Bunny and YHLQMDLG respectively became Spotify's most-streamed artist and album globally in 2020. It marked the first time a non-English language music artist topped the year-end list, with a The Guardian article considering him "the world's biggest pop star" for his streaming numbers. The album received the Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop or Urban Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards. On February 20, 2021, Bad Bunny performed "La Noche de Anoche" with Rosalía and "Te Deseo Lo Mejor" on Saturday Night Live, hosted by Regé-Jean Page, as well as appearing in the pre-recorded musical sketches "Loco" and "Sea Shanty". On the US Billboard Hot 100, Bad Bunny's next single "Yonaguni" became his fourth top 10 entry and first with no accompanying acts. Bad Bunny was cast in an upcoming David Leitch-directed film starring Brad Pitt.

In July 2021, it was announced that Bad Bunny co-wrote and co-produced the fifth album of Puerto Rican Latin pop artist Tommy Torres titled El Playlist de Anoche. Bad Bunny won the most awards at the 2021 Billboard Latin Music Awards with ten, including the category Artist of the Year. In the following months, he was featured on Aventura's single "Volví", and released "Lo Siento BB:/" with Tainy and Julieta Venegas. In September 2021, he appeared on the Time 100, Times annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Bad Bunny's 2022 concert tour, El Último Tour del Mundo, has visited the US and Canada indoor arenas. He won Best Urban Music Album and Best Rap/Hip Hop Song at the 22nd Annual Latin Grammy Awards. El Último Tour Del Mundo won Best Música Urbana Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. In December 2021, it was announced that Bad Bunny became Spotify's most-streamed artist of the year globally, for a second year in a row.

On 24 December 2021, a short film and music video titled Te Deseo Lo Mejor was released in collaboration with the creators of The Simpsons. The film was directed by David Silverman and stars Humberto Vélez, Claudia Motta and Bad Bunny.

 2022–present: Un Verano Sin Ti and Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana

In January 2022, Bad Bunny was featured in Vogue Magazine for the second time modeling the current season's best bags. In April 2022, Sony Pictures announced Bad Bunny as the lead for El Muerto, a film set in Sony's Spider-Man Universe. The film was originally set to be released on January 12, 2024, prior to being removed from the release schedule. On May 6, 2022, Bad Bunny released his fourth (fifth overall) studio album Un Verano Sin Ti which it became commercially successful as it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and stood there for thirteen non-consecutive weeks.

Bad Bunny began his fourth concert tour World's Hottest Tour on August 5, 2022, set to visit fourteen countries of the American continent. On October 4, 2022, the tour became the highest-grossing tour by a Latin artist in history, earning US$232.5 million at the time. Bad Bunny received the most nominations (eight) for the 2022 American Music Awards, including his first for artist of the year.

On May 19, 2023, Bad Bunny released his first solo single of the year titled "Where She Goes", in which he ventured into jersey club music. The music video had cameos from Frank Ocean, Lil Uzi Vert, Ronaldinho, and others.

In an interview with Vanity Fair on September 12, 2023, Bad Bunny revealed that he is no longer involved in the upcoming El Muerto film after its schedule removal. He has also confirmed that he is working on a new album that is planned to come out sometime during the fall, Bad Bunny hinted at the possibility of the upcoming project's sound, confirming that he is "playing around and enjoying myself, letting go. I'm being inspired a lot by the music of the '70s, —across genres, in both Spanish and English, but I'm not sure if this is going to shape my music, generally or just one song," After weeks of unconfirmed teasers and rumors, Bad Bunny revealed the album's title Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana, which has 22 tracks and was released on October 13, 2023.

 Artistry

 Musical style and influences

Bad Bunny is considered to be primarily a Latin trap and reggaeton artist. As described in a Rolling Stone article, Bad Bunny sings and raps with a "conversational tone", employing "a low, slurry tone, viscous melodies, and a rapper's cadence." Throughout the years, Bad Bunny has listed his influences with a wide variety of artists from multiple genres such as Héctor Lavoe, Vico C, Romeo Santos, Juan Luis Guerra, Elvis Crespo, Ricky Martin, Juan Gabriel, Don Omar, Daddy Yankee, Ivy Queen, Tego Calderón, Wisin & Yandel, Calle 13, Víctor Manuelle, and Marc Anthony, amongst many others. He considers himself to be a "music fanatic" which is the reason why he's inspired by so many people. During an episode of Behind the Music, he talked about Ricky Martin's legacy for Latin music and Latin artists, and how Martin changed the music landscape for future Latin artists. In the music video for Neverita, Bad Bunny paid homage to the Suavemente music video by Puerto Rican artist Elvis Crespo, leaving a message in the end translated from Spanish as "In honor of the best video of all time". Elvis Crespo later felt honored by his tribute and ended up doing a merengue version of the song himself in which he performed at the 2022 Latin Billboard Music Awards.

Although primarily considered to be a Latin trap and reggaeton artist, his music also incorporates various other elements from other genres such as pop, hip-hop, rock, electronic, reggae, dancehall, latin, soul, and R&B. Some publications have credited him for bringing Latin trap into the mainstream in the English-language music market.

According to Timothy Monger of AllMusic, his lyrics "range from humor and pathos to heartbreak and anger (sometimes in the same song)." According to Paper, other themes explored in Bad Bunny's music include "self-love, inclusivity, and LGBTQ acceptance".

 Public image
Vanessa Rosales of CNN has opined that "in pink, florals and short shorts, Bad Bunny champions a new masculinity".

He has appeared at award shows with manicured, polished, and long fingernails. Ben Beaumont-Thomas of The Guardian opined in 2020 that Bunny's style influenced fellow Latin artists, who "often now share his highly colorful mashup of streetwear and tailoring."

 Personal life
Relationships
In 2017, while eating at a restaurant with his family after performing at a Zion and Lennox concert, Bad Bunny met jewelry designer Gabriela Berlingeri. They soon began collaborating professionally before being public about their relationship. This was seen when Berlingeri provided the reference vocals for Jennifer Lopez who featured on Bad Bunny's track 'Te Guste'. The two were spotted in public for the first time in 2020 at a Dallas Mavericks versus Miami Heat game in Miami. Bad Bunny would declare in an interview with Entertainment Tonight less than a month later that he was "in love." The two posted pictures with each other on social media for the first time on March 7, 2020, with a post on Bad Bunny's Instagram. The two would continue to collaborate professionally as well. Berlingeri would feature on tracks like 2020's "En Casita" and 2022's "El Apagon," and she also would be the photographer for his May 2020 Rolling Stone cover, making her the first-ever Latina to shoot the cover for the magazine. The two however would go their separate ways in late 2022.

Rumors of Bad Bunny being with model and media star Kendall Jenner first began to circulate in February 2023, after TMZ spotted the pair leaving a restaurant together. Photos and videos of the two together on dates spread throughout the internet for months, with their first official public outing being at a Lakers-Warriors NBA playoff game on May 12, 2023. In September 2023, the two featured together in a shoot for Gucci's Valigeria campaign, one that "explores the intimacy of traveling together."

 Sexuality
In July 2018, Bad Bunny had criticized a nail salon in Asturias, Spain, for refusing to give him service since he was a man; the post angered many fans, leading them to leave homophobic comments and question Bad Bunny's sexuality. Bad Bunny responded to the hateful comments by offering to impregnate the wives of his critics. The post was deleted and Bad Bunny later ended up apologizing and deleting his own Twitter account.

In support of LGBT Rights, Bad Bunny criticized a tweet by reggaeton artist Don Omar considered to be homophobic in January 2019. During a performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in February 2020, he called attention to the murder of transgender woman Alexa Negrón Luciano in Puerto Rico by wearing a shirt with the words "They Killed Alexa. Not a Man in a Skirt.", referencing news reports that had misgendered the victim. Ricky Martin has stated that Bad Bunny "has become an icon for the Latin queer community" due to his support of gay and transgender Latinos as well as his embrace of drag culture. Bad Bunny was recognized for his allyship in 2023 by queer advocacy organization GLAAD when Ricky Martin presented him with the Vanguard Award for allyship at the 34th GLAAD Media Awards.

Bad Bunny has also expressed publicly that he views his own sexuality as fluid. In a 2020 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he stated "At the end of the day, I don't know if in 20 years I will like a man. One never knows in life. But at the moment I am heterosexual and I like women." This fluidity was on display at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, when he kissed a male dancer during his performance of "Tití Me Preguntó."

 Activism
Bad Bunny criticized the lack of humanitarian aid in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island of Puerto Rico. He established the Good Bunny Foundation, which distributes toys to children living in poverty in Puerto Rico.

In 2019, he was nominated for Telemundo's inaugural , in the category of "Humanitarian Award of the Year."

On July 22, 2019, Bad Bunny joined artists such as Residente, Ricky Martin, and more than half a million Puerto Ricans in taking the streets and shutting down the Expreso Las Américas, a major highway also known as the Autopista Luis A. Ferré, in protests against government corruption and demanding Ricardo Rosselló's resignation from the office of Governor of Puerto Rico. In May 2020, he had not taken a position regarding the Puerto Rican statehood movement and had stated that he would prefer to answer at a later time with more clarification. He later concluded his answer in January 2021 stating that he would never "want to see Puerto Rico become a State". It was widely understood that he was not necessarily advocating for Puerto Rican independence, only that he opposed the territory ever becoming the 51st state.

Legal Issues
In March 2023, a woman who had been in a relationship with Bad Bunny from 2011-2016 filed a $40 million USD lawsuit against the rapper and his manager for unauthorized usage of a recording of her voice. According to the lawsuit, a 2015 recording of the woman saying "Bad Bunny, baby" was used without her permission in the songs "Pa Ti" and "Dos Mil 16".

 Professional wrestling career

A self-professed lifelong fan of professional wrestling, Bad Bunny began making appearances in the American promotion WWE in 2021. During WWE's annual Royal Rumble event held on January 31, 2021, Bad Bunny performed his song "Booker T" live, which also had an appearance by the former wrestler of the same name. He then began appearing on WWE's weekly television show, Monday Night Raw.

Wrestler Damian Priest, a fellow Puerto Rican, allied with Bad Bunny and helped him win the WWE 24/7 Championship from Akira Tozawa on the February 15 episode of Raw. On the March 15 episode, he relinquished the 24/7 Championship to R-Truth in exchange for "Stone Cold" Steve Austin memorabilia, ending his reign at 28 days. At WrestleMania 37, Bad Bunny teamed with Damian Priest in a tag team match to defeat The Miz and John Morrison in his in-ring wrestling debut.

At the 2022 Royal Rumble on January 29, Bad Bunny returned to WWE, competing in the men's Royal Rumble match. He eliminated Sheamus and Dolph Ziggler and lasted until the final five, when he was eliminated by the eventual winner, Brock Lesnar. On January 23, 2023, it was announced that Bad Bunny would be a playable wrestler in the WWE 2K23 video game as a pre-order bonus.

On March 8, 2023, it was announced that Bad Bunny would serve as the host for WWE's upcoming event, Backlash, taking place in his native Puerto Rico. On April 1, 2023, Bad Bunny joined the Spanish announce team to commentate during the match between Rey Mysterio and Dominik Mysterio on Night 1 of WrestleMania 39. Bunny would intervene during the match, preventing Dominik from attacking Rey with a chain. Two nights later on Raw, Bunny—who was seated front row as a fan—was attacked and chokeslammed through the announcers table by former partner Damian Priest, who was now a teammate of Dominik Mysterio in The Judgment Day. On the April 24 episode, Bunny returned and attacked Priest with a kendo stick, subsequently announcing that instead of hosting Backlash, he would be wrestling Priest in a San Juan Street Fight at the event. On the May 5 episode of SmackDown, Bunny helped the Latino World Order (LWO) save Rey Mysterio from an attack from The Judgment Day, leading to Mysterio giving Bunny an LWO t-shirt, signifying his addition to the group. At Backlash on May 6, Bunny defeated Damian Priest in a San Juan Street Fight, to the admiration of his home fans.

 Championships and accomplishments
 WWE WWE 24/7 Championship (1 time)
 Bumpy Award (1 time)
 Best Moment of the Half-Year (2021) – Bad Bunny competing at WrestleMania

 Awards
Throughout his career Bad Bunny has received nine nominations at the Grammy Awards, winning three times for Best Latin Pop or Urban Album with YHLQMDLG (2021), Best Música Urbana Album for  (2022) and Un Verano Sin Ti (2023), and he earned nine Latin Grammy Awards out of twenty-seven nominations. ASCAP Latin Awards recognized him as the Songwriter of the Year in 2020. Within the MTV award shows, Bad Bunny became the first non-English language artist to win the MTV Video Music Award for Artist of the Year in 2022.

 Discography Solo studio albums X 100pre (2018)
 YHLQMDLG (2020)
  (2020)
 Un Verano Sin Ti (2022)
 Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana (2023)Collaborative studio albums'''
 Oasis'' (with J Balvin) (2019)

Filmography

Tours
 La Nueva Religión Tour (2018)
 X 100Pre Tour (2019)
 El Último Tour del Mundo (2022)
 World's Hottest Tour (2022)
 Most Wanted Tour (2024)

Notes

References

External links

1994 births
Living people
Grammy Award winners
Hip hop singers
Latin Grammy Award winners
Latin music songwriters
Latin pop singers
Latin trap musicians
MTV Video Music Award winners
People from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican hip hop musicians
Puerto Rican male professional wrestlers
Puerto Rican rappers
Puerto Rican record producers
Puerto Rican reggaeton musicians
Puerto Rican singer-songwriters
Sexually fluid men
Singers from San Juan, Puerto Rico
Spanish-language singers
Spanish-language singers of the United States
Latino World Order members
University of Puerto Rico alumni
Urbano musicians
WWE 24/7 Champions

Bad Bunny


Arthur Ward Thomas (25 January 1881 – 7 May 1965) was a New Zealand cricketer who played first-class cricket for Canterbury from 1911 to 1922.

Cricket career
Arthur Thomas was an all-rounder: a lower-order or middle-order batsman who bowled medium-pace. He was the outstanding player of the Plunket Shield match in January 1915 when Canterbury beat Auckland in Auckland. Replacing the injured Duncan McLachlan in the team, he did not bowl in Auckland's first innings, then made 41 at number nine to take Canterbury's first innings from 124 for 7 to 208 all out. He then took the first seven wickets in Auckland's second innings and finished with figures of 8 for 99, the best figures recorded for the Plunket Shield at that time. He then contributed 20 at number eight to Canterbury's one-wicket victory.

He made his highest score in Canterbury's victory over Wellington in the 1919-20 Plunket Shield. After dismissing Wellington for 239, Canterbury were 160 for 6 when Thomas went to the wicket. He made 83 not out, the highest score of the match, and took Canterbury's total to 350. He then took 3 for 25 as Wellington made only 153 in their second innings, and Canterbury went on to win by seven wickets.

Personal life
On 29 April 1903 Thomas married Esther Boulton at her parents' home in Charing Cross, a small farming settlement west of Christchurch. She died in January 1945. He died in 1965.

References

External links

 Arthur Thomas at CricketArchive

1881 births
1965 deaths
New Zealand cricketers
Canterbury cricketers
Cricketers from Christchurch

Arthur Thomas (New Zealand cricketer)


Garúa is a Spanish word meaning drizzle or mist. Most often, garúa is used to refer to the moist cold fog that  occurs on  the coasts of Peru, southern Ecuador, and northern Chile, during the  winter months.  Garúa is called Camanchaca in Chile.

These coastal regions in Peru, Ecuador and Chile  have a desert climate. There's almost no rain during the year.  Garúa brings mild temperatures and high humidity.  It also provides moisture from fog and mist to a nearly-rainless region. The places where there's often fog also have more vegetation. They are called fog oases, or lomas.

Fog and drizzle are common on the coast, and near lakes. In the case of garùa, its impact on the climate is unique.

How it forms
The Humboldt Current runs along the coast. It brings cold waters.  It is responsible for both the desert-like climate and the garùa. The area covers the coasts of Peru and Chile from latitudes 5° to 30° South, a north-south distance of roughly . The Humboldt Current brings mild temperatures and high humidity to a  very arid region. The cold waters create an inversion: the air near the ocean surface is cooler than the air above, contrary to most climatic situations. The trade winds blow the cool air and fog eastward over coastal areas, where the fog transforms into drizzle and mist, the garúa.

Garúa is a dense fog that does not produce rain. The water droplets in the fog measure between 1 and 40 microns across, too fine to form rain.

Impact on climate
The impact of the Humboldt Current and the garúa it produces is substantial.  Lima, Peru is near sea level. The city is located at 12° south latitude. It  is in the tropics and would in most climatic situations have average temperatures of  or higher in every month of the year.  By contrast, Lima has monthly average temperatures that range from  (January through March) in the warmest months and  in the coolest months of July through September, the months in which the garúa is most frequent.

The impact on sunshine is even more important. Only 34 percent of daylight hours in Lima have sunshine every year.  On average, July and August receive less than one hour a day of sunshine. Lima receives only 1,230 hours of sunshine per year.  By contrast, London, notoriously cloudy and foggy, gets 1,573 hours of sunshine annually and New York City receives 2,535 hours of sunshine annually.  The climate of Lima is typical of the coasts of Peru and northern Chile.

Nineteenth-century American author, Herman Melville called Lima "the strangest, saddest city thou cans't see.", because of the garùa clouds and mist in winter. Twenty-first century Lima, on the oher hand, has a flourishing tourist trade and has been described as having a "hidden loveliness."

The desert coast on the 1700 mile north south stretch is very dry: On average, it gets less than  of precipitation per year. Some areas may go without rain for many years.  Only the moisture condensed from the garùa clouds -- plus occasional El Niño events -- enables islands of vegetation to be present in the lomas dotted up and down the Peruvian and Chilean coasts.  Except for the lomas and river valleys draining the higher and more humid Andes the coastal desert has almost no vegetation.

The garúa extends only a few kilometers inland. It dissipates  over land especially where it coalesces against mountain slopes at elevations of  to , the altitudes at which the vegetated lomas are found.

Fog collection

In the area, water is scarce, and scientis have found a way to collect water from  from the moisture-laden garúa.

In Chile, in 1985, scientists devised a fog collection system: They used nets to capture the water droplets in the fog. These nets are made of a special material,  polyolefin. That way, it is possible to  produce running water for villages in these otherwise desert areas. The Camanchacas Project installed 50 large fog-collecting nets on a mountain ridge, which captured some 2% of the water in the fog.

In 2005, another installation of panels of  produced  per square meter per day.

In Peru there is an effort to preserve the fragile ecosystem of the garúa-watered lomas. Conservation groups have installed fog-catching nets in the Atiquipa District to capture water and help the 80 families who live within the area to expand agriculture, primarily of olives.

References

Related pages

 Fog
 Geography of Peru
Precipitation
Geography of Chile
Geography of Peru
Pages with unreviewed translations

Garúa