Zhejiang

For the former Chekiang province of the Republic of China, see Chekiang Province, Republic of China.
Zhejiang Province
浙江省
Province
Name transcription(s)
 • Chinese 浙江省 (Zhèjiāng Shěng)
 • Abbreviation 浙 (pinyin: Zhè)
 • Wu Tsehkaon San
Map showing the location of Zhejiang Province
Map showing the location of Zhejiang Province
Coordinates: 29°12′N 120°30′E / 29.2°N 120.5°E / 29.2; 120.5Coordinates: 29°12′N 120°30′E / 29.2°N 120.5°E / 29.2; 120.5
Named for Old name of Qiantang River
Capital
(and largest city)		 Hangzhou
Divisions 11 prefectures, 90 counties, 1570 townships
Government
 • Secretary Xia Baolong
 • Governor Li Qiang
Area
 • Total 101,800 km2 (39,300 sq mi)
Area rank 26th
Population (2013)[1]
 • Total 54,890,000
 • Rank 10th
 • Density 540/km2 (1,400/sq mi)
 • Density rank 8th
Demographics
 • Ethnic composition Han: 99.2%
She: 0.4%
 • Languages and dialects Wu, Huizhou, Jianghuai Mandarin, Min Nan (in Cangnan and Pingyang County)
ISO 3166 code CN-33
GDP (2014[2]) CNY 4.0153 trillion
US$ 650 billion (4th)
 • per capita CNY 73,152
US$ 11,914 (5th)
HDI (2010) 0.744[3] (high) (5th)
Website www.zj.gov.cn
Zhejiang

"Zhejiang" in Chinese characters
Chinese 浙江
Postal Chekiang
Literal meaning "Zhe River"

 Zhejiang , formerly romanized as Chekiang, is an eastern coastal province of China. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiangsu province and Shanghai municipality to the north, Anhui province to the northwest, Jiangxi province to the west, and Fujian province to the south; to the east is the East China Sea, beyond which lie the Ryukyu Islands of Japan.

Etymology

The province's name derives from the Zhe River (浙江, Zhè Jiāng), the former name of the Qiantang River which flows past Hangzhou and whose mouth forms Hangzhou Bay. It is usually glossed as meaning "Crooked" or "Bent River", from the meaning of Chinese 折,[4] but is more likely a phono-semantic compound formed from adding 氵 (the "water" radical used for river names) to phonetic 折 (pinyin zhé but reconstructed Old Chinese *tet[5]), preserving a proto-Wu name of the local Yue, similar to Yuhang, Kuaiji, and Jiang.

History

Prehistory

Zhejiang was the site of the Neolithic cultures of the Hemudu and Liangzhu. A 2007 analysis of the DNA recovered from human remains in the archeological sites of prehistoric peoples along the Yangtze River shows high frequencies of haplogroup O1 [6]

Ancient history

The area of modern Zhejiang was outside the major sphere of influence of the Shang civilization during the second millennium BC. Instead, this area was populated by peoples collectively known as the Hundred Yue, including the Dongyue and the Ouyue. The kingdom of Yue began to appear in the chronicles and records written during the Spring and Autumn Period. According to the chronicles, the kingdom of Yue was located in northern Zhejiang. Shiji claims that its leaders were descended from the Shang founder Yu the Great. Evidence suggests that Baiyue and the kingdom of Yue possessed their own culture and history that are different from those kingdoms in north and central China, whose cultures and histories were carefully recorded in chronicles and histories during the Spring and Autumn Period and into the Qin dynasty. The Song of the Yue Boatman (Chinese: 越人歌, p Yuèrén Gē, lit. "Song of the man of Yue") was transliterated into Chinese and recorded by authors in north China or inland China of Hebei and Henan around 528 BC. The song shows that the Yue people spoke a language that was mutually unintelligible with the dialects spoken in north and inland China. The Yue peoples seem to have had their own written script. The Sword of Goujian bears bird-worm seal script. Yuenü (Chinese: 越女; pinyin: Yuènǚ; Wade–Giles: Yüeh-nü; literally: "the Lady of Yue") was a swordswoman from the state of Yue. In order to check the growth of the kingdom of Wu, Chu pursued a policy of strengthening Yue. Under King Goujian, Yue recovered from its early reverses and fully annexed the lands of its rival in 473 BC. The Yue kings then moved their capital center from their original home around Mount Kuaiji in present-day Shaoxing to the former Wu capital at present-day Suzhou. With no southern power to turn against Yue, Chu opposed it directly and, in 333 BC, succeeded in destroying it. Yue's former lands were annexed by the Qin Empire in 222 BC and organized into a commandery named for Kuaiji in Zhejiang but initially headquartered in Wu in Jiangsu.

Han and the Three Kingdoms

Kuaiji Commandery was the initial power base for Xiang Liang and Xiang Yu's rebellion against the Qin Empire which initially succeeded in restoring the kingdom of Chu but eventually fell to the Han. Under the Later Han, control of the area returned to the settlement below Mount Kuaiji but authority over the Minyue hinterland was nominal at best and its Yue inhabitants largely retained their own political and social structures.

At the beginning of the Three Kingdoms era (220–280 CE), Zhejiang was home to the warlords Yan Baihu and Wang Lang prior to their defeat by Sun Ce and Sun Quan, who eventually established the Kingdom of Wu. Despite the removal of their court from Kuaiji to Jianye (present-day Nanjing), they continued development of the region and benefitted from influxes of refugees fleeing the turmoil in northern China. Industrial kilns were established and trade reached as far as Manchuria and Funan (south Vietnam).

Zhejiang was part of the Wu during the Three Kingdoms. Wu (229–280), commonly known as Eastern Wu or Sun Wu, had been the economically most developed state among the Three Kingdoms (220–280 CE). The historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms records that Zhejiang had the best-equipped, strong navy force. The story depicts how the states of Wei (魏) and Shu (蜀), lack of material resources, avoided direct confrontation with the Wu. In armed military conflicts with Wu, the two states relied intensively on tactics of camouflage and deception to steal Wu's military resources including arrows and bows.

Six Dynasties

Despite the continuing prominence of Nanjing (then known as Jiankang), the settlement of Qiantang, the former name of Hangzhou, remained one of the three major metropolitan centers in the south to provide major tax revenue to the imperial centers in the north China. The other two centers in the south were Jiankang and Chengdu. In 589, Qiangtang was raised in status and renamed Hangzhou.

Following the fall of Wu and the turmoil of the Wu Hu uprising against the Jin dynasty (265–420), most of elite Chinese families had collaborated with the non-Chinese rulers and military conquerors in the north. Some may have lost social privilege, and took refugee in areas south to Yangtze River. Some of the Chinese refugees from north China might have resided in areas near Hangzhou. For example, the clan of Zhuge Liang (181–234), a chancellor of the state of Shu Han from Central Plain in north China during the Three Kingdoms period, gathered together at the suburb of Hangzhou, forming an exclusive, closed village Zhuge Village (Zhege Cun), consisting of villagers all with family name "Zhuge". The village has intentionally isolated itself from the surrounding communities for centuries to this day, and only recently came to be known in public. It suggests that a small number of powerful, elite Chinese refugees from the Central Plain might have taken refugee in south of the Yangtze River. However, considering the mountainous geography and relative lack of agrarian lands in Zhejiang, most of these refugees might have resided in some areas in south China beyond Zhejiang, where fertile agrarian lands and metropolitan resources were available, mainly north Jiangsu, west Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Anhui,and provinces where less cohesive, organized regional governments had been in place. Metropolitan areas of Sichuan was another hub for refugees, given that the state of Shu had long been founded and ruled by political and military elites from the Central Plain and north China. Some refugees from the north China might have found residence in south China depending on their social status and military power in the north. The rump Jin state or the Southern Dynasties vied against some elite Chinese from the Central Plain and south of the Yangtze River.

Sui and Tang

Zhejiang, as the heartland of the Jiangnan (Yangtze River Delta), remained the wealthiest area during the Six Dynasties (220 or 222–589), Sui, and Tang. After being incorporated into the Sui dynasty, its economic richness was used for the Sui dynasty's ambitions to expand north and south, particularly into Korea and Vietnam. The plan led the Sui dynasty to restore and expand the network which became the Grand Canal of China. The Canal regularly transported grains and resources from Zhejiang, through its metropolitan center Hangzhou (and its hinterland along both the Zhe River and the shores of Hangzhou Bay), and from Suzhou, and thence to the North China Plain. The débâcle of the Korean war led to Sui's overthrow by the Tang, who then presided over a centuries-long golden age for the country. Zhejiang was an important economic center of the empire's Jiangnan East Circuit and was considered particularly prosperous. Throughout the Tang dynasty, The Grand Canal had remained effective, transporting grains and material resources to North China plain and metropolitan centers of the empire. As the Tang Dynasty disintegrated, Zhejiang constituted most of the territory of the regional kingdom of Wuyue.

Song

The Song dynasty reëstablished unity around 960. Under the Song, the prosperity of South China began to overtake that of North China. After the north was lost to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in 1127 following the Jingkang Incident, Hangzhou became the capital of the Southern Song under the name Lin'an. Renowned for its prosperity and beauty, it may have been the largest city in the world at the time.[7] From then on, north Zhejiang and neighboring south Jiangsu have been synonymous with luxury and opulence in Chinese culture. The Mongol conquest and the establishment of the Yuan dynasty in 1279 ended Hangzhou's political clout, but its economy continued to prosper. Marco Polo visited the city, which he called "Kinsay" (after the Chinese Jingshi, meaning "Capital City") claiming it was "the finest and noblest city in the world".[8]

Greenware ceramics made from celadon had been made in the area since the 3rd-century Jin dynasty, but it returned to prominence—particularly in Longquan—during the Southern Song and Yuan. Longquan greenware is characterized by a thick unctuous glaze of a particular bluish-green tint over an otherwise undecorated light-grey porcellaneous body that is delicately potted. Yuan Longquan celadons feature a thinner, greener glaze on increasingly large vessels with decoration and shapes derived from Middle Eastern ceramic and metalwares. These were produced in large quantities for the Chinese export trade to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and (during the Ming) Europe. By the Ming, however, production was notably deficient in quality. It is in this period that the Longquan kilns declined, to be eventually replaced in popularity and ceramic production by the kilns of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi.[9]

Ming

This tripod planter from the Ming Dynasty was found in Zhejiang province. It is housed in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

The Ming dynasty, which drove out the Mongols in 1368, established the province of Zhejiang and their borders have changed little since this founding.

Qing

Under the late Ming dynasty and the Qing dynasty that followed it, Zhejiang's ports were important centers of international trade.

"In 1727 the to-min or 'idle people' of Cheh Kiang province (a Ningpo name still existing), the yoh-hu or 'music people' of Shanxi province, the si-min or 'small people' of Kiang Su (Jiangsu) province, and the Tanka people or 'egg-people' of Canton (to this day the boat population there), were all freed from their social disabilities, and allowed to count as free men."[10] "Cheh Kiang" is another romanization for Zhejiang. The Duomin (Chinese: 惰民; pinyin: duò mín; Wade–Giles: to-min) are a caste of outcasts in this province.

During the First Opium War, the British navy defeated Eight Banners forces at Ningbo and Dinghai. Under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking, signed in 1843, Ningbo became one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened to virtually unrestricted foreign trade. Much of Zhejiang came under the control of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom during the Taiping Rebellion, which resulted in a considerable loss of life in the province. In 1876, Wenzhou became Zhejiang's second treaty port.

Republican era

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, which led into World War II, much of Zhejiang was occupied by Japan and placed under the control of the Japanese puppet state known as the Reorganized National Government of China. Following the Doolittle Raid, most of the B-25 American crews that came down in China eventually made it to safety with the help of Chinese civilians and soldiers. The Chinese people who helped them, however, paid dearly for sheltering the Americans. The Imperial Japanese Army began the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign to intimidate the Chinese out of helping downed American airmen. The Japanese killed an estimated 250,000 civilians while searching for Doolittle’s men.[11]

People's Republic

After the People's Republic of China took control of Mainland China in 1949, the Republic of China government based in Taiwan continued to control the Dachen Islands off the coast of Zhejiang until 1955, even establishing a rival Zhejiang provincial government there, creating a situation similar to Fujian province today. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), Zhejiang was in chaos and disunity, and its economy was stagnant, especially during the high tide (1966–69) of the revolution. The agricultural policy favoring grain production at the expense of industrial and cash crops intensified economic hardships in the province. Mao’s self-reliance policy and the reduction in maritime trade cut off the lifelines of the port cities of Ningbo and Wenzhou. While Mao invested heavily in railroads in interior China, no major railroads were built in South Zhejiang, where transportation remained poor.[12]

Zhejiang benefited less from central government investment than some other provinces due to its lack of natural resources, a location vulnerable to potential flooding from the sea, and an economic base at the national average. Zhejiang, however, has been an epicenter of capitalist development in China, and has led the nation in the development of a market economy and private enterprises.[12] Northeast Zhejiang, as part of the Yangtze Delta, is flat, more developed, and industrial.[12]

Geography

View of the West Lake in Hangzhou.

Zhejiang consists mostly of hills, which account for about 70% of its total area. Altitudes tend to be the highest to the south and west and the highest peak of the province, Huangmaojian Peak (1,929 meters or 6,329 feet), is located there. Other prominent mountains include Mounts Yandang, Tianmu, Tiantai, and Mogan, which reach altitudes of 700 to 1,500 meters (2,300 to 4,900 ft).

Valleys and plains are found along the coastline and rivers. The north of the province lies just south of the Yangtze Delta, and consists of plains around the cities of Hangzhou, Jiaxing, and Huzhou, where the Grand Canal of China enters from the northern border to end at Hangzhou. Another relatively flat area is found along the Qu River around the cities of Quzhou and Jinhua. Major rivers include the Qiangtang and Ou Rivers. Most rivers carve out valleys in the highlands, with plenty of rapids and other features associated with such topography. Well-known lakes include the West Lake of Hangzhou and the South Lake of Jiaxing.

There are over three thousand islands along the rugged coastline of Zhejiang. The largest, Zhoushan Island, is Mainland China's third largest island, after Hainan and Chongming. There are also many bays, of which Hangzhou Bay is the largest. Zhejiang has a humid subtropical climate with four distinct seasons. Spring starts in March and is rainy with changeable weather. Summer, from June to September is long, hot, rainy, and humid. Fall is generally dry, warm and sunny. Winters are short but cold except in the far south. Average annual temperature is around 15 to 19 °C (59 to 66 °F), average January temperature is around 2 to 8 °C (36 to 46 °F) and average July temperature is around 27 to 30 °C (81 to 86 °F). Annual precipitation is about 1,000 to 1,900 mm (39 to 75 in). There is plenty of rainfall in early summer, and by late summer Zhejiang is directly threatened by typhoons forming in the Pacific.

Administrative divisions

Zhejiang is divided into eleven prefecture-level divisions: all prefecture-level cities (including two sub-provincial cities):

Administrative divisions of Zhejiang
№ Division code[13] English name Chinese Pinyin Area in km2[14] Population 2010[15] Seat Divisions[16]
Districts Counties Aut. counties CL cities
  330000 Zhejiang 浙江省 Zhèjiāng Shěng 101800.00 54,426,891 Hangzhou 36 33 1 20
1 330100 Hangzhou 杭州市 Hángzhōu Shì 16840.75 8,700,400 Gongshu District 9 2 2
2 330200 Ningbo 宁波市 Níngbō Shì 9816.23 7,605,700 Jiangdong District 6 2 3
10 330300 Wenzhou 温州市 Wēnzhōu Shì 12255.77 9,122,100 Lucheng District 4 5 2
4 330400 Jiaxing 嘉兴市 Jiāxīng Shì 4008.75 4,501,700 Nanhu District 2 2 3
3 330500 Huzhou 湖州市 Húzhōu Shì 5818.44 2,893,500 Wuxing District 2 3
8 330600 Shaoxing 绍兴市 Shàoxīng Shì 8279.08 4,912,200 Yuecheng District 3 1 2
5 330700 Jinhua 金华市 Jīnhuá Shì 10926.16 5,361,600 Wucheng District 2 3 4
7 330800 Quzhou 衢州市 Qúzhōu Shì 8841.12 2,122,700 Kecheng District 2 3 1
11 330900 Zhoushan 舟山市 Zhōushān Shì 1378.00 1,121,300 Dinghai District 2 2
9 331000 Taizhou 台州市 Tāizhōu Shì 10,083.39 5,968,800 Jiaojiang District 3 4 2
6 331100 Lishui 丽水市 Líshuǐ Shì 17298.00 2,117,000 Liandu District 1 6 1 1

The eleven prefecture-level divisions of Zhejiang are subdivided into 90 county-level divisions (36 districts, 20 county-level cities, 33 counties, and one autonomous county). Those are in turn divided into 1,570 township-level divisions (761 towns, 505 townships, 14 ethnic townships, and 290 subdistricts). Hengdian belongs to Jinhua, which is the largest base of shooting films and TV dramas in China. Hengdian is called "China's Hollywood".

Politics

The politics of Zhejiang is structured in a dual party-government system like all other governing institutions in Mainland China. The Governor of Zhejiang is the highest-ranking official in the People's Government of Zhejiang. However, in the province's dual party-government governing system, the Governor is subordinate to the Zhejiang Communist Party of China (CPC) Provincial Committee Secretary, colloquially termed the "Zhejiang CPC Party Chief".

Several political figures who served as Zhejiang's top political office of Communist Party Secretary have played key roles in various events in PRC history. Tan Zhenlin (term 1949-1952), the inaugural Party Secretary, was one of the leading voices against Mao's Cultural Revolution during the so-called February Countercurrent of 1967. Jiang Hua (term 1956-1968), was the "chief justice" on the Special Court in the case against the Gang of Four in 1980. Three provincial Party Secretaries since the 1990s have gone onto prominence at the national level. They include CPC General Secretary and President Xi Jinping (term 2002-2007), National People's Congress Chairman and former Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang (term 1998-2002), and Zhao Hongzhu (term 2007-2012), the Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China's top anti-corruption body. Of Zhejiang's fourteen Party Secretaries since 1949, none were native to the province.

Zhejiang was home to Chiang Kai-shek and many high-ranking officials in the Kuomintang, who fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Civil War.

Economy

The province is traditionally known as the "Land of Fish and Rice". True to its name, rice is the main crop, followed by wheat; north Zhejiang is also a center of aquaculture in China, and the Zhoushan fishery is the largest fishery in the country. The main cash crops include jute and cotton, and the province also leads the provinces of China in tea production. (The renowned Longjing tea is a product of Hangzhou.) Zhejiang's towns have been known for handicraft production of goods such as silk, for which it is ranked second among the provinces. Its many market towns connect the cities with the countryside.

As of 1832, the province was exporting silk, paper, fans, pencils, wine, dates, tea and "golden-flowered" hams.[17]

Ningbo, Wenzhou, Taizhou and Zhoushan are important commercial ports. The Hangzhou Bay Bridge between Haiyan County and Cixi, is the longest bridge over a continuous body of sea water in the world.

Zhejiang's main manufacturing sectors are electromechanical industries, textiles, chemical industries, food, and construction materials. In recent years Zhejiang has followed its own development model, dubbed the "Zhejiang model", which is based on prioritizing and encouraging entrepreneurship, an emphasis on small businesses responsive to the whims of the market, large public investments into infrastructure, and the production of low-cost goods in bulk for both domestic consumption and export. As a result, Zhejiang has made itself one of the richest provinces, and the "Zhejiang spirit" has become something of a legend within China. However, some economists now worry that this model is not sustainable, in that it is inefficient and places unreasonable demands on raw materials and public utilities, and also a dead end, in that the myriad small businesses in Zhejiang producing cheap goods in bulk are unable to move to more sophisticated or technologically more advanced industries.[18] The economic heart of Zhejiang is moving from North Zhejiang, centered on Hangzhou, southeastward to the region centered on Wenzhou and Taizhou.[12] The per capita disposable income of urbanites in Zhejiang reached 24,611 yuan (US$3,603) in 2009, an annual real growth of 8.3%. The per capita pure income of rural residents stood at 10,007 yuan (US$1,465), a real growth of 8.1% year-on-year.[19] Zhejiang's nominal GDP for 2011 was 3.20 trillion yuan (US$506 billion) with a per capita GDP of 44,335 yuan (US$6,490).[20] In 2009, Zhejiang's primary, secondary, and tertiary industries were worth 116.2 billion yuan (US$17 billion), 1.1843 trillion yuan (US$173.4 billion), and 982.7 billion yuan (US$143.9 billion) respectively.[18][21][22][23]

Economic and Technological Development Zones

Economic and technological development concerns

Waste disposal

On Thursday, September 15, 2011, more than 500 people from Hongxiao Village protested over the large-scale death of fish in a nearby river. Angry protesters stormed the Zhejiang Jinko Solar Company factory compound, overturned eight company vehicles, and destroyed the offices before police came to disperse the crowd. Protests continued on the two following nights with reports of scuffles, officials said. Chen Hongming, a deputy head of Haining's environmental protection bureau, said the factory's waste disposal had failed pollution tests since April. The environmental watchdog had warned the factory, but it had not effectively controlled the pollution, Chen added.[24]

Demographics

She ethnic county, townships and towns in Zhejiang
Historical population
YearPop.±%
1912[25] 21,440,000—    
1928[26] 20,643,000−3.7%
1936-37[27] 21,231,000+2.8%
1947[28] 19,959,000−6.0%
1954[29] 22,865,747+14.6%
1964[30] 28,318,573+23.8%
1982[31] 38,884,603+37.3%
1990[32] 41,445,930+6.6%
2000[33] 45,930,651+10.8%
2010[34] 54,426,891+18.5%

Han Chinese make up the vast majority of the population, and the largest Han subgroup are the speakers of Wu varieties of Chinese. There are also 400,000 members of ethnic minorities, including approximately 200,000 She people and approximately 20,000 Hui Chinese. Jingning She Autonomous County in Lishui is the only She autonomous county in China.[35]

Religion

Religion in Zhejiang[36][note 1] (74.36%)

The predominant religions in Zhejiang are Chinese folk religions, Taoist traditions and Chinese Buddhism. According to surveys conducted in 2007 and 2009, 23.02% of the population believes and is involved in cults of ancestors, while 2.62% of the population identifies as Christian, decreasing from 3.92% in 2004.[36] The reports didn't give figures for other types of religion; 74.36% of the population may be either irreligious or involved in worship of nature deities, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, folk religious sects, and small minorities of Muslims.

Temple of the Chenghuangshen (City God) of Hangzhou, by night, in Wushan, Xihu.
Temple of Bao Gong in Ouhai, Wenzhou.
Buddha altar in the Puji Temple of Mount Putuo.
Jusheng Temple in Wuma, Lucheng, Wenzhou.
Temple of the King of Heaven of the Little Putuo Buddhist Monastery in Yinzhou, Ningbo.
Temple of Yue Fei in Hangzhou.

In mid-2015 the government of Zhejiang recognised folk religion as "civil religion" beginning the registration of more than twenty thousand folk religious associations.[37] Buddhism has an important presence since its arrival in Zhejiang 1,800 years ago.[38]

Catholicism arrived 400 years ago in the province and Protestantism 150 years ago.[38] Zhejiang is one of the provinces of China with the largest concentrations of Protestants, especially notable in the city of Wenzhou.[39] In 1999 Zhejiang's Protestant population comprised 2.8% of the provincial population, a small percentage but higher than the national average.[40]

The rapid development of religions in Zhejiang has driven the local committee of ethnic and religious affairs to enact measures to rationalise them[41] in 2014, variously named "Three Rectifications and One Demolition" operations or "Special Treatment Work on Illegally Constructed Sites of Religious and Folk Religion Activities" according to the locality.[42] These regulations have led to cases of demolition of churches and folk religion temples, or the removal of crosses from churches' roofs and spires.[43] An exemplary case was that of the Sanjiang Church.[44]

Islam arrived 1,400 years ago in Zhejiang. Today Islam is practiced by a small number of people including virtually all the Hui Chinese living in Zhejiang.[38] Another religion present in the province is She shamanism (practiced by She ethnic minority).

Media

The Zhejiang Radio & Television, Hangzhou Radio & Television Group, Ningbo Radio & Television Group are the local broadcasters in Zhejiang Province.

Culture

A boat on one of Shaoxing's waterways, near the city center. North Zhejiang, known as the "Land of Fish and Rice", is characterized by its canals and waterways.

Languages

Zhejiang is mountainous and has therefore fostered the development of many distinct local cultures. Linguistically speaking, Zhejiang is extremely diverse. Most inhabitants of Zhejiang speak Wu, but the Wu dialects are very diverse, especially in the south, where one valley may speak a dialect completely unintelligible to the next valley a few kilometers away. Other varieties of Chinese are spoken as well, mostly along the borders; Mandarin and Huizhou dialects are spoken on the border with Anhui, while Min dialects are spoken on the border with Fujian. (See Hangzhou dialect, Shaoxing dialect, Ningbo dialect, Wenzhou dialect, Taizhou dialect, Jinhua dialect, and Quzhou dialect for more information).

Throughout history there have been a series of lingua francas in the area to allow for better communication. The dialects spoken in Hangzhou, Shaoxing, and Ningbo have taken on this role historically. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Mandarin, which is not mutually intelligible with any of the local dialects, has been promoted as the standard language of communication throughout China. As a result, most of the population now can, to some degree, speak and comprehend Mandarin and can code-switch when necessary. A majority of the population educated since 1978 can speak Mandarin. Urban residents tend to be more fluent in Mandarin than rural people. Nevertheless, a Zhejiang accent is detectable in almost everyone from the area communicating in Mandarin, and the home dialect remains an important part of the everyday lives and cultural identities of most Zhejiang residents.

Music

Zhejiang is the home of Yueju (越劇), one of the most prominent forms of Chinese opera. Yueju originated in Shengzhou and is traditionally performed by actresses only, in both male and female roles. Other important opera traditions include Yongju (of Ningbo), Shaoju (of Shaoxing), Ouju (of Wenzhou), Wuju (of Jinhua), Taizhou Luantan (of Taizhou) and Zhuji Luantan (of Zhuji).

Cuisine

Longjing tea (also called dragon well tea), originating in Hangzhou, is one of the most prestigious, if not the most prestigious Chinese tea. Hangzhou is also renowned for its silk umbrellas and hand fans. Zhejiang cuisine (itself subdivided into many traditions, including Hangzhou cuisine) is one of the eight great traditions of Chinese cuisine.

Place names

Since ancient times, north Zhejiang and neighbouring south Jiangsu have been famed for their prosperity and opulence, and simply inserting north Zhejiang place names (Hangzhou, Jiaxing, etc.) into poetry gave an effect of dreaminess, a practice followed by many noted poets. In particular, the fame of Hangzhou (as well as Suzhou in neighbouring Jiangsu province) has led to the popular saying: "Above there is heaven; below there is Suzhou and Hangzhou" (上有天堂，下有苏杭), a saying that continues to be a source of pride for the people of these two still prosperous cities.

Tourism

The Hall of Five Hundred Arhats at Guoqing Temple

Tourist destinations in Zhejiang include:

Sports

Professional sports teams based in Zhejiang include:

Education

Colleges and universities

China Academy of Art (中国美术学院) (Hangzhou)

Notes

  1. ↑ The data was collected by the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) of 2009 and by the Chinese Spiritual Life Survey (CSLS) of 2007, reported and assembled by Xiuhua Wang (2015)[36] in order to confront the proportion of people identifying with two similar social structures: ① Christian churches, and ② the traditional Chinese religion of the lineage (i. e. people believing and worshipping ancestral deities often organised into lineage "churches" and ancestral shrines). Data for other religions with a significant presence in China (deity cults, Buddhism, Taoism, folk religious sects, Islam, et. al.) was not reported by Wang.</ref>
      Christianity (2.62%)
      Other religions or not religious people<ref group='note'>This may include:

References

  1. ↑ "Communiqué of the National Bureau of Statistics of People's Republic of China on Major Figures of the 2010 Population Census [1] (No. 2)". National Bureau of Statistics of China. 29 April 2011. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
  2. ↑ 2013年浙江省国民经济和社会发展统计公报 (in Chinese). Zhejiang Provincial Statistic Bureau. 2014-02-26. Retrieved 2014-03-05.
  3. ↑ 《2013中国人类发展报告》 (PDF) (in Chinese). United Nations Development Programme China. 2013. Retrieved 2014-01-05.
  4. ↑ People's Daily Online. "Origin of the Names of China's Provinces". (Chinese).
  5. ↑ Baxter, William & al. "Baxter-Sagart Old Chinese Reconstruction". Accessed 20 May 2012.
  6. ↑ Li, Hui; Huang, Ying; Mustavich, Laura F.; Zhang, Fan; Tan, Jing-Ze; Wang, ling-E; Qian, Ji; Gao, Meng-He; & Jin, Li (2007). "Y chromosomes of prehistoric people along the Yangtze River" (PDF). Human Genetics 122: 383–388. doi:10.1007/s00439-007-0407-2. PMID 17657509.
  7. ↑ "Largest Cities Through History". Geography.about.com. 2013-07-19. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  8. ↑ http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/polo-kinsay.html
  9. ↑ Vainker, Shelaugh. Chinese Pottery and Porcelain. London: British Museum Press, 1991.
  10. ↑ Edward Harper Parker (1903). China, past and present. London: Chapman and Hall, ld. p. 404. Retrieved 2012-02-28. the lot of both Manchu and Chinese bondsmen. In 1727 the to-min or "idle people " of Cheh Kiang province (a Ningpo name still existing), the yoh-hu or " music people " of Shan Si province, the si-min or "small people " of Kiang Su province, and the tan-ka or "egg-people" of Canton (to this day the boat population there), were all freed from their social disabilities, and allowed to count as free men. So far as my own observations go, after residing for a quarter of a century in half the provinces of China, north, south, east, and west, I should be inclined to describe slavery in China as totally invisible to the naked eye ; personal liberty is absolute where feebleness or ignorance do not expose the subject to the rapacity of mandarins, relatives, or speculators. Even savages and foreigners are welcomed as equals, so long as they conform unreservedly to Chinese custom. On the other hand, the oldfashioned social disabilities of policemen, barbers, and playactors still exist in the eyes of the law, though any idea of caste is totally absent therefrom, and "unofficially" these individuals are as good as any other free men. Having now taken a cursory view of Chinese slavery from its historical aspect, let us see what it is in practice. Though the penal code forbids and annuls the sale into slavery of free persons, even by a husband, father, or grandfather, yet the number of free persons who are sold or sell themselves to escape starvation and misery is considerable. It is nominally a punishable offence to keep a free man or lost child as a slave; also for parents to sell their children without the consent of the latter, or to drown their girls; but in practice the law is in both cases ignored, and scarcely ever enforced ; a fortiori the minor offence of selling children, even with their consent. Indeed, sales of girls for secondary wives is of daily occurrence, and, as we have seen, the Emperors Yung-cheng and K'ien-lung explicitly recognized the right of parents to sell children in times of famine, whilst the missionaries unanimously bear witness to the fact that the public sale of children in the streets—for instance, of Tientsin—was frequently witnessed during recent times of dearth. But slave markets and public sales are unknown in a general way. Occasionally old parents sell their children in order to purchase coffins for themselves. Only a few years ago a governor and a censor
  11. ↑ "PBS Perilous Flight". Pbs.org. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  12. 1 2 3 4 "Regional Inequality in China: A Case Study of Zhejiang Province - Wei - 2004 - Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie - Wiley Online Library". .interscience.wiley.com. 2004-02-16. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  13. ↑ "中华人民共和国县以上行政区划代码". 中华人民共和国民政部.
  14. ↑ 深圳市统计局. 《深圳统计年鉴2014》. 深圳统计网 (中国统计出版社). Retrieved 2015-05-29.
  15. ↑ shi, Guo wu yuan ren kou pu cha ban gong; council, Guo jia tong ji ju ren kou he jiu ye tong ji si bian = Tabulation on the 2010 population census of the people's republic of China by township / compiled by Population census office under the state; population, Department of; statistics, employment statistics national bureau of (2012). Zhongguo 2010 nian ren kou pu cha fen xiang, zhen, jie dao zi liao (Di 1 ban. ed.). Beijing Shi: Zhongguo tong ji chu ban she. ISBN 978-7-5037-6660-2.
  16. ↑ 中华人民共和国民政部 (2014.08). 《中国民政统计年鉴2014》. 中国统计出版社. ISBN 978-7-5037-7130-9. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ↑ Roberts, Edmund (1837). Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 122.
  18. 1 2 "China Economy @ China Perspective". Thechinaperspective.com. 2013-09-06. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  19. ↑ "四川省2010年第六次全国人口普查主要数据公报". Stats.gov.cn. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  20. ↑ "People's Daily Online - East China province leads the way in per capita GDP". English.people.com.cn. 2006-01-30. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  21. ↑ "People's Daily Online - Agriculture grows steadily in E. China province". English.people.com.cn. 2006-02-05. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  22. ↑ "People's Daily Online - E. China province records double-digit growth in secondary industry". English.people.com.cn. 2006-02-05. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  23. ↑ "People's Daily Online - Tertiary industry grows 15 percent in E.China province". English.people.com.cn. 2006-02-05. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  24. ↑ "Protest over factory pollution in E China enters third day". China Daily. Xinhua. 18 September 2011. Retrieved 19 September 2011. Hangzhou - Hundreds of villagers in East China's Zhejiang Province protested for the third day on Saturday at a solar panel manufacturer, whose parent is a New York-listed firm, over concerns of its harmful wastes.
  25. ↑ "1912年中国人口". Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  26. ↑ "1928年中国人口". Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  27. ↑ "1936-37年中国人口". Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  28. ↑ "1947年全国人口". Retrieved 6 March 2014.
  29. ↑ "中华人民共和国国家统计局关于第一次全国人口调查登记结果的公报". National Bureau of Statistics of China.
  30. ↑ "第二次全国人口普查结果的几项主要统计数字". National Bureau of Statistics of China.
  31. ↑ "中华人民共和国国家统计局关于一九八二年人口普查主要数字的公报". National Bureau of Statistics of China.
  32. ↑ "中华人民共和国国家统计局关于一九九〇年人口普查主要数据的公报". National Bureau of Statistics of China.
  33. ↑ "现将2000年第五次全国人口普查快速汇总的人口地区分布数据公布如下". National Bureau of Statistics of China.
  34. ↑ "Communiqué of the National Bureau of Statistics of People's Republic of China on Major Figures of the 2010 Population Census". National Bureau of Statistics of China.
  35. ↑ "China council for the promotion of international trade (ccpit)ZheJiang sub-council". Ccpitzj.gov.cn. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  36. 1 2 3 China General Social Survey 2009, Chinese Spiritual Life Survey (CSLS) 2007. Report by: Xiuhua Wang (2015, p. 15)
  37. ↑ Zhejiang Online: Zhejiang started yesterday to award registration certificates to folk religious activities. 2015-04-16
  38. 1 2 3 浙江省宗教概况, 浙江省民族宗教事务委员会
  39. ↑ Nanlai Cao. Constructing China's Jerusalem: Christians, Power and Place in the City of Wenzhou. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2010, 232 pp., Chapter One
  40. ↑ Statistics for the Protestant Church: China, Chinese Theological Review, 14, p. 154.
  41. ↑ 冯志礼主任动员我省基督教界支持参与“三改一拆”行动, 浙江省民族宗教事务委员会
  42. ↑ Congressional-Executive Commission on China's Annual Report 2014. p. 221
  43. ↑ Congressional-Executive Commission on China: Zhejiang Government Launches Demolition Campaign, Targets Christian Churches.
  44. ↑ Govt efforts key to desensitizing religious management, Global Times

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