July 31, 2001. This is a view of the central plaza and park area in the center of Nanchang. Nanchang is a city of about 3.5 million people in Jiangxi province. Nanchang lies less than 100 miles south of the Chang Jiang River (also called the Yangtze River). As a country, China has over one-fifth of the world's population. There are about 1.25 billion people in China, and about 6 billion in the world. By comparison, the United States is the world's third most populous nation with about 290 million (India is second, with over a billion). The land area of China is almost identical to that of the United States.