| Guiyang 贵阳 |
|
|---|---|
| — Prefecture-level city — | |
| 贵阳市 | |
| Skyline of Guiyang | |
| Nickname(s): The Forest City, The Summer Capital of China, The Second Spring City | |
| Location of Guiyang City (yellow) in Guizhou and the PRC | |
|
Guiyang
|
|
| Coordinates: | |
| Country | People's Republic of China |
| Province | Guizhou |
| Area | |
| • Prefecture-level city | 8,034 km2 (3,101.9 sq mi) |
| • Urban | 2,403.4 km2 (928 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 1,275 m (4,183 ft) |
| Population (2010 census) | |
| • Prefecture-level city | 4,324,561 |
| • Density | 538.3/km2 (1,394.1/sq mi) |
| • Urban | 2,552,635 |
| • Urban density | 1,062.1/km2 (2,750.8/sq mi) |
| Time zone | China Standard (UTC+8) |
| Postal code | 550000 |
| Area code(s) | (0)851 |
| Website | http://www.gygov.gov.cn/ |
Guiyang (simplified Chinese: 贵阳; traditional Chinese: 貴陽; pinyin: Guìyáng) is the capital of Guizhou province of Southwest China. It is located in the centre of the province, situated on the east of the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau, and on the north bank of the Nanming River, a branch of the Wu River. The city has an elevation of about 1,100 meters. It has an area of 8,034 square kilometers.[1] Its population is 4,324,561 at the 2010 census whom 2,552,635 live in the built up area made of 7 urban districts.
Contents |
The city was first constructed as early as 1283 AD during the Yuan Dynasty. It was originally called Shunyuan (順元), meaning obeying the Yuan (the Mongol rulers).
Originally the area was populated by non-Chinese. The Sui Dynasty (AD 581–618) had a commandery there, and the Tang dynasty (618–907) a prefecture. They were, however, no more than military outposts, and it was not until the Yuan (Mongol) invasion of southwest China in 1279 that the area was made the seat of an army and a "pacification office." Chinese settlement in the area also began at that time, and, under the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, the town became the seat of a superior prefecture named Guiyang.
Locally Guiyang was an important administrative and commercial center with two distinct merchant communities, consisting of the Sichuanese, who lived in the "new" northern part of the city, and those from Hunan, Guangdong, and Guangxi province, who lived in the "old" southern part. Nevertheless, until the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), Guiyang was no more than the capital of one of China's least-developed provinces. As elsewhere in the southwest, considerable economic progress was made under the special circumstances of wartime. Road transport infrastructure with Kunming in Yunnan province and with Chongqing in Sichuan (China's wartime provisional capital) and into Hunan were established. Work was begun on a railway from Liuzhou in Guangxi, and after 1949 this development was accelerated. Guiyang has subsequently become a major provincial city and industrial base. In 1959 the rail network in Guangxi was completed, allowing seamless connection from Guizhou to Chongqing to the north, to Kunming to the west, and Changsha to the east.
| Guiyang | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 贵阳 | ||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 貴陽 | ||||||||||||||
| Hanyu Pinyin | Guìyáng | ||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | The South of The Gui Mountain | ||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
Guiyang has grown exponentially since the 1990s. The city's heart is around the 大十字 (literally "Big Ten") which is a cross, resembling the Chinese character for ten, and 喷水池 (literally "Fountain Pool") which is a traffic intersection which had a large fountain at its center, until the fountain was paved over in early 2010 to help improve the flow of traffic.
The city is situated on the Nanming River, a headstream of the Wu River, which eventually joins the Yangtze River at Fuling in Sichuan province. Guiyang is a natural transportation center, with comparatively easy access northward to Sichuan, eastward to Guangxi and Guangdong, westward to Yunnan, and northeast to Hunan province.
Guiyang has a four-season, humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa), tempered by its low latitude and high elevation. It has fairly mild winters, very warm summers and a monsoon season, where the majority of the year's 1,120 millimetres (44 in) of precipitation falls; the seasons are not particularly distinct, with frequent unseasonable cold or warm spells, but extreme temperatures are rare. The mean temperature in January is 5.1 °C (41.2 °F) and for July 23.9 °C (75.0 °F). Rain is common throughout the year, with occasional flurries in winter. At only 1150 hours of sunshine, it is also one of China's least sunny cities. Relative humidity is consistent throughout the year.
| Climate data for Guiyang (1971–2000) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °C (°F) | 8.8 (47.8) |
10.8 (51.4) |
16.1 (61.0) |
21.2 (70.2) |
24.1 (75.4) |
26.4 (79.5) |
28.3 (82.9) |
28.5 (83.3) |
25.1 (77.2) |
20.5 (68.9) |
15.9 (60.6) |
11.6 (52.9) |
19.8 (67.6) |
| Average low °C (°F) | 2.7 (36.9) |
4.0 (39.2) |
7.8 (46.0) |
12.7 (54.9) |
16.3 (61.3) |
19.1 (66.4) |
20.7 (69.3) |
20.2 (68.4) |
17.4 (63.3) |
13.3 (55.9) |
9.0 (48.2) |
4.7 (40.5) |
12.3 (54.1) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 20.5 (0.807) |
20.1 (0.791) |
32.8 (1.291) |
87.6 (3.449) |
164.6 (6.48) |
225.2 (8.866) |
177.0 (6.969) |
126.8 (4.992) |
100.1 (3.941) |
97.5 (3.839) |
47.4 (1.866) |
18.1 (0.713) |
1,117.7 (44.004) |
| % humidity | 80 | 78 | 76 | 75 | 76 | 78 | 77 | 76 | 76 | 77 | 77 | 76 | 76.8 |
| Avg. precipitation days (≥ 0.1 mm) | 13.7 | 12.8 | 13.3 | 15.6 | 18.4 | 16.7 | 15.3 | 14.1 | 13.0 | 14.4 | 12.1 | 10.3 | 169.7 |
| Sunshine hours | 41.2 | 47.1 | 81.8 | 103.5 | 108.4 | 104.2 | 154.4 | 167.1 | 119.4 | 91.4 | 69.0 | 62.4 | 1,149.9 |
| Source: 中国气象局 国家气象信息中心 | |||||||||||||
Guiyang is the economic and commercial hub of Guizhou Province. The GDP per capita was ¥24,585 (US$3,637) in 2009. The city is also a large center for retail and wholesale commercial activities with operations of major domestic and international general retailers such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour, RT-Mart, Beijing Hualian, Parkson, and Xingli Group as well as consumer electronics and appliance sellers Gome and Suning. Wholesale operations include large regional produce, furniture, and industrial and construction machinery depots. Wal-Mart's southwest China regional vegetable and produce distribution center is located in Guiyang.
Hydro-electric power generators are located along the city's main rivers including the Wu River. By 2007, the city's hydro electric plants supplied over 70% of the city's electricity. Coal is mined in the locality of Guiyang and Anshun, and there are large thermal generating plants at Guiyang and Duyun, supplying electricity for a portion of the city's industry. A large iron and steel plant came into production in Guiyang in 1960, supplying the local machinery-manufacturing industry.
Large deposits of bauxite have been discovered to the north, and by the 1970s Guiyang had become a major producer of aluminum. Guiyang also manufactures aerospace engine parts and equipment, industrial and mining equipment, as well as railway vehicles and equipment. It has a large chemical industry, producing fertilizers, and a rubber industry, manufacturing automobile tires. Guiyang also has a sizable domestic pharmaceuticals industry, producing traditional Chinese medicines as well as western medicines, textile plants, and makes glass, paper, and other consumer goods.
Guiyang is populated by 23 different minorities, the most populous of which is the Miao people, in addition to the ethnic Han.
As of 2008 , the total population of Guiyang municipality was 3.93 million, among which 2.72 million were urban residents.
The city is the cultural and educational center of Guizhou province and has a university, a teacher-training college, and a medical school.
On October 15, 1696, the city was made the seat of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of Kweichow. This was suppressed in 1715 and restored in 1846. In 1924 it was renamed as the Apostolic Vicariate of Guiyang, and in 1946 it was promoted to its current status as the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Guiyang.
Guiyang is twinned with:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||