Why do so many Earthquakes seem to strike China more than any other nation?

Question

Is it based solely on the tectonic plates and faults? Why?

Answer 1

China has the most people so they are going to have the greatest amount of negative impact. Nobody cares about earthquakes in Anartica due to the fact nobody lives there but they happen.

Answer 2

I asked my dad this question when there was that recent Earthquake in California. He said, "China's in the 'danger zone'"

So I think what he meant was that there are more plates near China than anywhere else :)

Answer 3

I think more fault lines meet near there.  California and the U.S. west coast have lots of quakes too.  Yet more of the pressure is released via all the active volcanoes (i.e. Mt. St Helens I'm near it lots of activity there that isn't on international and/or national news. But the local goes on and on and on and.... about it) in alot of places.

Why so much in the area you mentioned.  Hmmm Dense population and not as many volcanoes is my theory.  

Answer 4

I don't know if China gets more earthquakes than does the west coast of the U.S. or Russia.  However, the larger the country, the greater probability of an earthquake.  If earthquakes were uniformly distributed across the continents, the larger countries would have proportionately more.

However, the devastation when an earthquake happens in China is large because of their building practices.  Their buildings tend to be too rigid to withstand large quakes.  Equivalently sized earthquakes in the U.S. cause far fewer casualties because of better building designs and materials.

Answer 5

If you can see SVG images, look at this map:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tecto...

There are plenty of plate boundaries where earthquakes tend to happen. There's the Ring of Fire as well as India moving northward, pushing up the Himalayas and causing pressure on the rocks in Asia.  

Answer 6

i think you mean Japan

and its called "the ring of fire"

YES