Qidong, Jiangsu

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Qidong is a county-level city in Jiangsu Province of People's Republic of China. It is located at the opposite side of the Yangtze River to Shanghai. It occupies a total of 1,157 square kilometers in land area, with a population of 1.16 million.

The city has a seat named Huilong Township. It also has a well-known fish port named Lv Si town -- meaning Mr. Lv Dong Bing, a legendary figure, had visited the place for four times. The other towns include Yin Yang, Bei Xin, Hai Fu, Nan Yang and others.

1 History
2 Population and Culture
- 2.1 Language
3 City Development
- 3.1 Entertainment
- 3.2 Constructions
4 Politics and Administration
5 References
6 External Links

[edit] History

In November 1989, the name "Qidong County" is abolished by following current policies. It has adopted the name "Qidong City" ever since.

[edit] Population and Culture

The county was formed from sands in the Yellow Sea in Qing Dao Guang or Qian Long. People migrated to the newly founded land from both South Ning Bo, Or North. And therefore there are two dialects.

[edit] Language

People living in Lv Si town speak a different dialect (Lv Si dialect, 吕四话 in simplified Chinese or Tongdong dialect 通东话 in simplified Chinese) from most other residents, who generally speak Qidong Dialect (启东话 in simplified Chinese). The two dialects are considerably different and thus they are not mutually intelligible. Because most economic, educational and governmental activities are held in the city capital Huilong, where Qidong Dialect is prevalent, many residents of Lv Si have learned to understand and even speak the majority dialect.

Qidong Dialect is a dialect of Wu Chinese. Some people consider it similar to Shanghainese, also a dialect of Wu Chinese, mostly spoken in the city of Shanghai. It is almost the same as the dialect spoken in Chongming, which is a town under administration of Shanghai.

Both of the two dialects belong to the Northern Wu dialect. However, because of cultural differences among two places, there still exist non-intelligible usage mostly in vocabulary.

[edit] City Development

[edit] Entertainment

At the end of 2006, KFC and McDonalds opened their first branches in Qidong respectively. This is seen as unusual because those two international companies rarely set up branches in county-level cities in China.