Pingtan Island

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pingtan Island (Chinese: 平潭岛; pinyin: Píngtán dǎo) also called Haitan Island (海坛岛, Hǎitán dǎo) is located in eastern coastal area in Fujian province, China. It is the largest island in Fujian, and the fifth largest island in China.

Administratively, Pingtan Island is now the main part of Pingtan County, which also includes a number of smaller surrounding islands. The county seat, Tancheng town, and most of other towns of this county, are in Pingtan Island.

Geography

Pingtan Island is located off the coast of Fujian's Fuqing City, separated from it by the Haitan Strait.

World Heritage Status

This site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on November 29, 2001 in the Mixed category (Cultural & Natural).[1]

Economy

The island relies on tourism and anticipates that foreign investment will spur economic growth. The first major bridge to cross the Haitan Strait was completed in November 2010, connecting the island to Fuqing on the mainland. Spanning 4,976 meters, it cost 1.4 billion RMB (about US $200 million) to build.[2]

A plan for an 88.5-km-long railway from Fuzhou to Pingtan Island, via Changle and a series of bridges, have been approved in November 2012. It is expected that the work would start by the end of the year, and would take about five and a half years.[3]

In early 2012, it was announced that a large cloud computing center would be built in Pingtan.[4]

References

External links

Coordinates: 25°32′48″N 119°46′36″E / 25.54667°N 119.77667°E / 25.54667; 119.77667


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.