What are the Provinces of China?

Mainland China has 31 province-level divisions: 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions with large ethnic minority populations (Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Xinjiang and Ningxia) and 4 municipalities directly controlled by the central government (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing). Hong Kong and Macau are separate special administrative regions. The province system goes back to the Yuan dynasty in the 13th century, and many of today's boundaries were set during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 the map has been redrawn several times: the autonomous regions were established between 1947 and 1965, Hainan became a separate province in 1988, and Chongqing became a municipality in 1997.