Cangzhou

Cangzhou
—  Prefecture-level city  —
Location of Cangzhou within Hebei
Cangzhou Location in China
Coordinates: 38°19′N 116°52′E / 38.317°N 116.867°E / 38.317; 116.867
Country	China
Province	Hebei
Area
- Total	5,181.1 sq mi (13,419 km2)
Population (2004)
- Total	488,600
Time zone	China standard time (UTC+8)

Cangzhou (simplified Chinese: 沧州; traditional Chinese: 滄州; pinyin: Cāngzhōu) is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, People's Republic of China. Cangzhou's urban center has a population of approximately 488,600 (2004), while the prefecture-level administrative region in total has a population of 6.8 million. It lies 180 km from Beijing, China's capital, and 90 km from the major port city of Tianjin.

Administrative divisions

Cangzhou City comprises 2 districts for Cangzhou's city proper:

• Yunhe District (运河区)
• Xinhua District (新华区)

4 county-level cities that have relatively large urban areas:

• Botou (泊头市)
• Renqiu (任丘市)
• Huanghua (黄骅市)
• Hejian (河间市)

10 counties (mostly rural):

• Cang County (沧县), which surrounds Cangzhou's urban center/city proper
• Qing County (青县)
• Xian County (献县)
• Dongguang County (东光县)
• Haixing County (海兴县)
• Yanshan County (盐山县)
• Suning County (肃宁县)
• Nanpi County (南皮县)
• Wuqiao County (吴桥县)
• Mengcun Hui Autonomous County (孟村回族自治县)

Economics

Cangzhou's urban center is a heavily industrial city but the city's administrative territory also includes strongly agricultural areas, and is renowned in China for its Chinese jujube fruits and Ya pears (well-known by the export name of Tianjin Ya Pear). The North China Oil Field is within Cangzhou City's jurisdiction. Cangzhou also encompasses a large fishing port and the modern, coal-exporting Huanghua Harbour.

Geography and transportation

Cangzhou is located to the south of Beijing, near the coast of the Bohai Sea of the Pacific Ocean. It lies on the Jinghu (Beijing-Shanghai) railway line and the notional Jinghu Axis, a geographic and transportation corridor between Beijing and Shanghai to the south.

The Shicang Expressway connects Cangzhou to Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province, and from thence links by road to the Jingshi Expressway leading to Beijing, part of the Jingzhu Expressway connecting all the way to southern China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Cangzhou's Huanghua Harbour is the end of a main Chinese coal shipping railway, the Shuohuang Line.

Major airports located closest to Cangzhou include Beijing Capital Airport and Tianjin Airport.

The Grand Canal passes directly through Cangzhou[3], and a district of Cangzhou is named after it (Yunhe, Chinese: 运河区).

Climate

Cangzhou's climate is mild to warm in the summer to cold in the winter, as in most of Hebei and north China. In winter months, snowfall is common.

History

Cangzhou is reported to have been founded in the Southern and Northern Dynasties period (420-589 CE).

Culture

The Iron Lion

The city has historically been known in China for its wushu–or martial arts–and acrobatics (specifically, the Wu Qiao school). Cangzhou is also famed for its historic thousand-year-old 40-ton sculpture, the Iron Lion of Cangzhou. The sculpture is reportedly the largest cast-iron sculpture in the world, cast in 953 in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The famed lion has even given its name to a locally-brewed beer and is a symbol of the city.^[1]

Cangzhou is home to a traditional Chinese form of musical performing arts, Kuaiban Dagu.

The city's Hui residents have seven mosques. One of them, the West Mosque, has collected at its museum one of Chinas's best collections of Islamic manuscripts and artefacts.^[2]

Demographics and society

Cangzhou, though predominated by the Han Chinese majority, is home to a sizable population of the Muslim Hui minority. Intermarriage occasionally occurs between the majority Han and the Hui, but stereotypes of Hui still exist among Cangzhou's Han residents, and some tensions remain. Migration to Hebei province and Cangzhou by Xinjiang Muslim minorities (generally ethnic Uighurs) is increasing.

Language

The dominant first language of Cangzhou's population is a variety of the northeastern Mandarin dialect continuum termed Cangzhou,^[3] and is a variety of Ji Lu Mandarin. There are some similarities with the Tianjin variety and the Baoding variety of Mandarin, but both are considered distinct groups from that of Cangzhou[4]. Dialects of the Cangzhou area vary between localities and counties, though are generally intelligible among each other. Cangzhou-area topolects are partially mutually intelligible with standard Mandarin.

Municipal government

The city, like all other Chinese administrative divisions, has a party committee, the People's government, the People's Congress, and the Political consultative conference.

Military

Cangzhou is home to Cangzhou Airbase of the People's Liberation Army-Air Force

Famous residents

• Sun Yue (basketball) (1985), fifth Chinese player in the NBA
• Wang Zi-Ping (1881–1973), Chinese martial arts grandmaster

References

1. ^ Wagner, Donald B. "The cast iron lion of Cangzhou", Needham Research Institute newsletter, no. 10, June 1991, pp. 2-3.
2. ^ WEST MOSQUE MUSEUM, CANGZHOU, HEBEI PROVINCE CHINA HERITAGE NEWSLETTER, No. 5, March 2006. (China Heritage Project, The Australian National University. ISSN 1833-8461).
3. ^ [1][2]

3. DuBois, Thomas. The Sacred Village: Social Change and Religious Life in Rural North China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.

External links

• http://www.china-military.org/units/cangzhou.htm
• Lions of Cangzhou: a Martial arts (wushu) school in Malle, Belgium
• Article about the Cangzhou Lion (in Chinese)
• "Chinese 'serial killer' arrested". BBC World Service. 15 November, 2003. (Incident in Cangzhou)
• http://www.spotsoftime.com/blog/archives/cat_china.html
• http://archives.foodsafetynetwork.ca/animalnet/1999/7-1999/an-07-10-99-01.txt

v • d • e   Province of Hebei Shijiazhuang (Capital) History • Politics • Economy • Music Province-level divisions Prefecture-level cities Baoding • Cangzhou • Chengde • Handan • Hengshui • Langfang • Qinhuangdao • Shijiazhuang • Tangshan • Xingtai • Zhangjiakou List of Hebei County-level divisions

v • d • e Counties in Cangzhou prefecture, Hebei province, China Districts : Xinhua · Yunhe County-level cities : Botou · Hejian · Huanghua · Renqiu Counties (Xian) : Cang · Dongguang · Haixing · Nanpi · Qing · Suning · Wuqiao · Xian · Yanshan Autonomous Xian : Mengcun

Coordinates: 38°19′N 116°52′E / 38.317°N 116.867°E / 38.317; 116.867