Jiangmen

Jiangmen 江门 Gong Mun
—  Prefecture-level city  —
City of Jiangmen · 江门市
Outside of Jiangmen's Old Book Store
Jiangmen
Coordinates: 23°2′N 113°43′E / 23.033°N 113.717°E / 23.033; 113.717
Country	China
Province	Guangdong
City Seat	Pengjiang District
Area
- Total	926 km2 (357.5 sq mi)
Population
- Total	3,740,000
- Density	4,038.9/km2 (10,460.6/sq mi)
	(2002)
Time zone	China Standard Time (UTC+8)
Postal code	529000
Area code(s)	750
License plate prefixes	粤J
Website	http://www.jiangmen.gov.cn/ (Chinese)

The Sino-British Restaurant, a renovated building along Changdi Middle road in the waterfront district.

Jiangmen (simplified Chinese: 江门; pinyin: Jiāngmén) is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong province in southern China with a population of about 3.8 million.

History

The port of Jiangmen, previously romanised as Kong-Moon, was forced to open to western trade in 1902. One legacy of this period is an historic waterfront district lined with buildings in the treaty port style. The city has an ongoing renewal project which has restored many of these buildings.

Jiangmen was proclaimed a city in 1951, and later became the administrative capital of the prefecture for the Wu Yi region which includes Taishan, Kaiping, Xinhui, Enping and Heshan.

Administration

Jiangmen has jurisdiction over:

• three urban districts:
  • Pengjiang District (Jiangmen City)
  • Jianghai District
  • Xinhui District (新會区)
• four county-level cities:
  • Taishan (台山)
  • Kaiping (开平)
  • Enping (恩平)
  • Heshan (鹤山)

Geography

The city is located on the lower reaches of the Xijiang or West River, in the west of the Pearl River Delta in the middle of southern Guangdong Province. It faces the South China Sea in the south and is 100 km away from Guangzhou and Zhuhai by highway. Jiangmen city has an area of 9,260 km², about one quarter the size of the Pearl River Delta.

The climate is subtropical with monsoon influences. The annual average temperature is 21.8°C.

Economy

Jiangmen was selected by the Chinese state as a pilot city for a nationwide information programme. It was also chosen by the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) as a trial city for the Regional Integration for Sustainable Economics (RISE) project. According to the "Report on Investment Environment in China 2003" by the World Bank, Jiangmen ranked the fourth after Shanghai, Hangzhou and Dalian of 23 cities under evaluation in China. Among various indicators, Jiangmen excelled in infrastructure, labour redundancy, proportion of joint ventures in all firms, informal payments to government, taxation, productivity and the investment rate.

The economic development strategies within Jiangmen focus on the three urban districts, and the south, middle and north lines. It is planned to develop four main economic areas: the central urban district of the city, the Yinzhou Lake (銀州湖) economic area, and two economic areas along the various transport axes.

Manufacturing industries

Similar to other cities in the western Pearl River Delta, the manufacturing sector plays a significant role in Jiangmen's economy. The chief industries include manufacturing of motorcycles, household appliances, electronics, paper, food processing, synthetic fibers and garments, as well as textiles and stainless steel products. Some worldwide brand names have factories in Jiangmen including Haojue motorcycles, Jingling fan/washing machines, Vinda toilet paper, ABB Group and Lee Kum Kee foods.

Jiangmen port

Jiangmen Port is the second largest river port in Guangdong province. The local government plans to develop a harbour industrial zone with heavy industries to include petrochemical and machinery plants, as well as an ocean-based economy.

Transport

Jiangmen has a mature network of inter-city highway (between Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Yangjiang and etc.). It does sits astride a key route between Guangzhou and the southwest region of its home province, even Guangxi Province.

A network of intra-city roadways has been built since the late 1990s to facilitate industrial integration within the city.

Jiangmen's railway transport is relatively weak,but the condition will be change before 2011. Guangzhou to Zhuhai Light Rail and Guangzhou to Zhuhai Rail will passby Jiangmen, which plan to be finished before 2011.

Making use of the Jiangmen Port facilities, Chu Kong Passenger Transport (CKS) connects Jiangmen with high speed ferry services to Hong Kong (95 nautical miles) taking about 2.5 hours each way.

Education

Wuyi University is the main university in Jiangmen.

Culture

Jiangmen is the homeland of 3.68 million overseas Chinese, who live in 107 countries and regions throughout the world. Strong oversea connections are especially found in the villages.

Tourism

A significant amount of historical heritage survives from the period of mass emigration prior to World War II. The most significant are the fortified multi-story towers found mainly in Kaiping. These are known as "Gold Mountain Towers" or diaolou (碉樓).

The local government's economic development strategies emphasise the development of tourism and protection of the environment.

External links

• Jiangmen International Website (Chinese)
• Invest Jiangmen Government Website (Chinese)

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v • d • e Guangdong Province History · Politics · People · Economy · Language · Music · Cuisine Sub-provincial cities Guangzhou · Shenzhen Prefecture-level cities Chaozhou · Dongguan · Foshan · Heyuan · Huizhou · Jiangmen · Jieyang · Maoming · Meizhou · Qingyuan · Shantou · Shanwei · Shaoguan · Yangjiang · Yunfu · Zhanjiang · Zhaoqing · Zhongshan · Zhuhai See also: List of Guangdong County-level divisions