The official language of China is Mandarin. BOCOG will provide multilingual volunteers for Service Centres.

Renminbi (RMB) is the country's legal currency. 1 RMB is approximately 0.094 Euro and 0.14 USD as of 01/02/2008.

Electricity: Voltage is 220

Beijing claims an area of 16,410 square kilometres and 15.38 million residents.

The climate is temperate and semi-humid with 4 distictive seasons. In August the temperature averages 25C (77F) with average relative humidity of 77 percent.

Beijing is 8 hours ahead of GMT.