How the World Works

Monday, Jan 7, 2008 08:34 PST

Made in China: The Bible

One out of every 138 humans on the planet is a Chinese blogger, and other fun facts from the Middle Kingdom.

By Andrew Leonard

Nanjing will soon be home to the world's biggest Bible factory, reports The China Post.

"The aircraft hangar-sized plant on an industrial park outside the eastern city of Nanjing will be capable of producing more than one Bible every second and is expected to supply one quarter of all the world's Bibles by 2009."

Chinese automobile sales grew by 20 percent in 2007, to 8.7 million units, making it the second largest car market in the world, reports Xinhua. Meanwhile:

"Battered by rocketing oil prices and economic recession, depression loomed over the European, American and Japanese auto markets. In the first three quarters [of 2007], the European auto market only saw a modest 0.7 percent annual growth while Japan dropped back to the level of 30 years ago."

According to data released by China's Ministry of Information Industry in December, there are now 539.4 million mobile phone users in China. In 2007, they sent 538.08 billion text messages.
The China Internet Network Information Center reports that as of the end of November 2007, there were 47 million bloggers in China. That's one out every four Chinese Internet users, or one out of every 30 Chinese citizens. Or one out every 138 human beings on the planet.