Heihe

Heihe 黑河 Prefecture-level city 黑河市 Heihe (red) in Heilongjiang province (orange) Heihe Location of the city proper in Heilongjiang Coordinates: 50°14′42″N 127°28′54″E / 50.24500°N 127.48167°E / 50.24500; 127.48167Coordinates: 50°14′42″N 127°28′54″E / 50.24500°N 127.48167°E / 50.24500; 127.48167 Country People's Republic of China Province Heilongjiang County-level divisions 6 Government  • Type Prefecture-level city  • CPC Heihe Secretary Liu Gang (刘刚)  • Mayor Zhang Enliang (张恩亮) Area  • Prefecture-level city 54,390 km2 (21,000 sq mi)  • Metro 1,443 km2 (557 sq mi) Population (2010)  • Prefecture-level city 1,673,898  • Metro 211,313 Time zone China Standard (UTC+8) Postal code 164300 Area code(s) 0456 Licence plates 黑N ISO 3166-2 cn-23-11 Website http://www.heihe.gov.cn/ Heihe Chinese name Chinese 黑河 Transcriptions Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Hēihé Manchu name Manchu script ᡥᡝᡳᡥᡝ Russian name Russian Хэйхэ Aigun Chinese name Chinese 瑷珲 Postal Map Aigun Transcriptions Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Àihún Manchu name Manchu script ᠠᡳ᠌ᡥᡡᠨ Russian name Russian Айгунь

Heihe (Chinese: 黑河; pinyin: Hēihé; "Black River") is a prefecture-level city of northern Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, located on the Russian border, on the south bank of the Amur River, across the river from Blagoveshchensk. Heihe has an urban population of about 211,313, while the total population of the prefecture-level city is 1,673,893.^[1]

Heihe marks the northeast terminus of the Heihe–Tengchong Line, which is sometimes used to divide China into east and west.

History

Aigou (Aigun) shown as one of the few towns on the Amur, and one of the most important places in the region, on a 1706 French map

Heihe, formerly Aihui or Aigun, is among one of the five oldest cities in Heilongjiang, along with Tsitsihar, Yilan, Acheng and Hulan. Human being started to settle in Heihe region as early as the Paleolithic Age, around the end of the 1st or the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD.^[2] Later it became home to local tribes. During the Qing Dynasty, Heihe was the first place troops sent to Heilongjiang were stationed. The predecessor of today's Heihe was the town established by the indigenous Ducher people of the Amur Valley in the mid 1650s.^[2] It was established some 30 km (19 mi) south of the modern city site^[3] (in today's Aihui District) and was known as Aigun, Heilongjiang, or Saghalien Ula. (The two last names both mean "the Black Dragon River" - the name for the Amur River in Chinese and Manchu, respectively). After the Ducher were evacuated by the Qing to the Sungari or Hurka in the 1650s, the Ducher town was probably vacated. However, in 1683-85 the Manchus re-used the site as a base for their campaign against the Russian fort of Albazin.^[4] Aigun was the capital (the seat of the Military Governor) of Heilongjiang from 1683 to 1690, before the capital was moved to Nenjiang (Mergen).^[5] After the capture of Albazin in 1685 or 1686, the Qing governor relocated the town to a new site on the right (southwestern) bank of the Amur, about 3 miles downstream from the original site.^[6][7] The new site occupied the location of the former village of the Daurian chief named Tolga.^[6] The city became known primarily under its Manchu name Saghalien Ula hoton (Manchu: sahaliyan ulai hoton, 萨哈连乌拉) and Chinese name Heilongjiang Cheng(黑龍江城), which both means "Black River City".^[8] Later the governor office was transferred to Qiqihar. However, Aigun remained the seat of the Deputy Lieutenant-General (Fu dutong), responsible for a large district covering much of the Amur Valley within the province of Heilongjiang as it existed in those days.^[5]

Muravyov's fleet off Aigun in 1854

Aigun was visited ca. 1709 as a part of a nationwide Sino-French cartographic program by the Jesuits Jean-Baptiste Régis, Pierre Jartoux, and Xavier Ehrenbert Fridelli,^[9] who found it a stronghold, serving as the base of Manchus controlling the Amur River basin. The Aigun Treaty was concluded at Aigun in 1858. According to this treaty, the left bank of the Amur River was conceded to Czarist Russia.

After Xinhai Revolution, Aigun became the county seat of the newly created Aigun County by the Republic of China. On November 15, 1980, Heihe City was established, administerring two county-level cities and three counties including Beian, Wudalianchi, Nenjiang, Sunwu and Sunke. Formerly Aihui County was abolished, being merged into the Heihe City.^[10]

Geography

Heihe is located at the right bank of the Amur, opposite to the city of Blagoveshchensk in Russia's Amur Oblast. Its jurisdictional area stretches for 54,390 km² (21,000 sq mi), which spans from 124° 45' to 129° 18' E longitude and 47° 42' to 51° 03' N latitude. Domestically, Heihe City borders Da Hinggan Ling Prefecture to the north, Yichun to the southeast, Suihua to the south, Qiqihar to the southwest, and Hulunbuir (Inner Mongolia) to the west. The Amur has formed the Sino-Russian border since the 1858 Aigun Treaty and 1860 Treaty of Peking. The area north of the Amur had previously belonged to Imperial China.

Climate

Heihe experiences a monsoon-influenced humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dwb), but Dwa in the south of the prefecture, with long, bitterly cold, windy, but dry winters due to the influence of the Siberian high, and warm, wet summers, due to the East Asian monsoon. Based on data from 1971–2000, the monthly daily mean temperature in January, the coldest month, is −23.2 °C (−9.8 °F), and July, the warmest month, averages 20.8 °C (69.4 °F), with an average annual temperature +0.38 °C (32.7 °F). Close to two-thirds of the annual precipitation falls in the months of June to August. Extreme temperatures have ranged from −44.5 °C (−48 °F) to 37.2 °C (99 °F).

Administrative divisions

#	Name	Hanzi	Hanyu Pinyin	Population (2010 est.)	Area (km²)	Density (/km²)
1	Aihui District	爱辉区	Àihuī Qū	211,313	13,993	14
2	Bei'an City	北安市	Běi'ān Shì	436,444	6,313	74
3	Wudalianchi City	五大连池市	Wǔdàliánchí Shì	326,390	9,800	37
4	Nenjiang County	嫩江县	Nènjiāng Xiàn	495,519	15,360	33
5	Xunke County	逊克县	Xùnkè Xiàn	101,411	17,020	6
6	Sunwu County	孙吴县	Sūnwú Xiàn	102,821	4,454	22

Transportation

The transportation to and from Heihe is as follows:

• Highways
  • China National Highway 202: Heihe–Dalian via Harbin, Jilin City and Shenyang
  • Provincial highways: Heihe–Mohe, etc.

• Railway (China Railways): Heihe–Bei'an to Harbin, Qiqihar and Daqing

• Waterway

Transportation between Blagoveshchensk and Heihe is by boat in the summer and by bus over the frozen river in the winter; when the ice is too thin to carry buses, the route is operated by hovercrafts.

• Air: Heihe Aihui Airport (HEK/ZYHE)
  • China Southern Airlines: Heihe–Beijing (Capital), –Harbin
  • Spring Airlines: Heihe–Harbin, and –Sanya
  • Shandong Airlines: Heihe–Harbin–Weihai–Jinan

Energy

West of Heihe, there is an HVDC back-to-back station for realizing an interconnection between the power grids of Russia and China with 750 MW transmission capacity.

Tourism

The Amur River (Heilong Jiang)

Wudalianchi Volcanic Landforms National Geopark

Heihe has plenty of natural tourism resources, including the Amur River and Wudalianchi Lake (五大连池) and Wudalianchi Volcanic Range (五大连池火山群), where people can take a trip to local volcanoes. The Old City of Aigun is a famous historical scenic spot, in which the Treaty of Aigun between China and Russia was signed in the 19th century.

Sport

The university of Heihe has requested the Russian bandy club SKA Neftyanik to send a coach, offering a one year contract.

Sister city

• Blagoveshchensk, Amur Oblast, Russia

See also

• Heihe–Tengchong Line

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Heihe.

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