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A long line of camels carrying packs in a caravan

A camel caravan in northern China

Long ago, in the Stone Age, about 3000 BC, many different kinds of wild animals lived in China – elephants, lions, pandas, wild horses, wolves, wild dogs, aurochs, and many others. But as there got to be more and more people and farms, there was less room. People started to kill off the animals, or destroy the animals’ habitat so they had nowhere to live or couldn’t find enough food to eat.

Different kinds of animals live in different parts of China, because the environment and weather are different in different parts of China. Panda bears, for example, live mostly in the mountains of south-western China.

Other parts of China are grasslands where you can graze cattle (mostly yaks) but you can’t farm.

Panda bears

Panda bears

Northeastern China has lots of forests and in the forests there are deer and even reindeer, and tigers.

There are elephants, wild chickens, leopards, and all sorts of other jungle animals. Southern China was one of the first places where people kept tame chickens.

More about the Chinese environment
More about Chinese food
More about the Central Asian environment

Bibliography and further reading about the Chinese environment:

More about the Chinese Environment
Ancient China
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