Washington, D.C.’s bike sharing program has 1,100 bikes. London’s system has 6,000. And Paris has more than 20,000.

But on the other side of the globe, Hangzhou, China has them beat with more than 60,000, according to a recent report by National Geographic.

To see how it all works, check out this short from Streetfilms:

Bike shares -- where a user can pick up a bicycle at one service point, ride it, and then drop it off at another and walk away -- are growing in popularity. China, along with many other developing nations, has a long-held cultural tie to bicycling. Demand for automobiles skyrocketed in recent decades, but in a city of 6.7 million like Hangzhou, it would be impossible to build enough roads to support this, not to mention environmental concerns.

Bike shares are cheap (nearly free for many in Hangzhou), highly accessible, and part of a sustainable urban growth model. Hangzhou hopes to expand its system to 120,000 bikes by 2020 and other cities are taking notice of its success. Companies in Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City are making a go of it and hope to remove the training wheels soon.

In the 50s and 60s Afghanistan had modern, clean health facilities. Today only 13% of children are born in hospitals. Photo: Daveeza (Flickr)

Recall an Afghanistan you probably forgot existed (or maybe you never knew). It's modern, stylish, and humming with productive economic activity. Women work alongside men dressed in form-fitting pencil skirts and kitten heels.

Foreign Policy's photo essay on Afghanistan in the 50s and 60s provides a glimpse into this bygone era. The photos highlight how much has changed since a war with the Soviets, a decade of Taliban rule, and the U.S. invasion.

There are shots of cinemas, homes lit with electricity, and well-stocked hospitals — things that few Afghans enjoy today.

This visual reminder of a long-lost Afghanistan says more than words ever could about how much conflict and oppression has cost the Afghan people.

According to the Christian Science Monitor's January 30 article, Namibia's rug-weaving industry can provide us with a lesson on globalization.