It's absolutely true in China, although, well, China is a/sliightly smaller (space-wise) than the US, and b/ has much less population distribution. See this map for an idea of what I'm talking about.
There's a similar map of the US here, although the population isn't to scale -- the Chinese map has more dots because each dot is 5,000 people, while the American map has 7,500 people-per-dot.
Still, it should be fairly clear that China's population is something like taking San Diego, LA, San Francisco and Seattle -- and, for that matter, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis & St. Louis -- and folding them (and all their history) over into New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Once you get west of Chongqing, there's a whole lot of Himalaya and even more Gobi.
Funny thing about China, though -- a dude in Urumqi, in the far west, might not have much in common with a dude in Shanghai (for one thing, the dude in Urumqi's going to have a *lot* fewer neighbors), but their watches are going to be set to the same time. More fruits of cultural dominance, I guess. |
