About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Cangzhou

Encyclopedia : C : CA : CAN : Cangzhou

Cangzhou (}; }) is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, China, with a population of approximately 470,000 (2004). It lies 180 km from Beijing, China's capital, and 90 km from the major port city of Tianjin.

Contents

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 south China, Hong Kong, and Macao. 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.

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, snow is not uncommon.

History

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

Culture

The city has historically been known in China for its wushu (martial arts) and acrobatics. Cangzhou is also famed for its historic thousand-year-old 40-ton lion sculpture. The sculpture is reportedly the largest cast-iron sculpture in the world, cast in 953 in Tang Dynasty. The famed lion has even given its name to a locally-brewed beer and is a symbol of the city.

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

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 tension remains.

Language

The dominant first language of Cangzhou's population is a variety of northeastern Mandarin dialect continuum (may be considered Ji Lu Mandarin) and considered to also bear similarities with the Tianjin dialect. It is partly intelligible with standard Mandarin. Dialects used in the city proper and surrounding localities are partially distinct though generally intelligible among each other.

Administrative Structure

Cangzhou City is comprised of

Government & Military

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

External links


Prefecture-level divisions of Hebei
'''Prefecture-level cities: Baoding | Cangzhou | Chengde | Handan | Hengshui
Langfang | Qinhuangdao | Shijiazhuang | Tangshan | Xingtai | Zhangjiakou
List of Hebei County-level divisions

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: