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Wenzhou (simplified Chinese: 温州; traditional Chinese: 溫州; pinyin: Wēnzhōu) is a major city in southeastern Zhejiang province of the People's Republic of China. The prefecture under its jurisdiction, which includes 2 satellite cities and 6 counties, had a population of 7,645,700 in 2007. About 1,423,600 residents live in Wenzhou's city proper. It borders Lishui to the west, Taizhou to the north, and looks out to the East China Sea on its eastern coast. Wenzhou was a prosperous foreign treaty port, which remains well-preserved today. It is situated in a very mountainous region and, as a result, has been isolated for most of its history from the rest of the country, making the local culture and language very different from those of neighbouring areas. It is also known for its emigrants who leave their native land for Europe and the United States, with a reputation for being enterprising natives who start restaurants, retail and wholesale businesses in their adopted countries.
[edit] AdministrationThe prefecture-level city of Wenzhou currently administers 3 district, 2 county-level cities and 6 counties.
[edit] HistoryWenzhou, also known as Yongjia (or Yung-chia) has a history which goes back to about 2000 BC, when it became known for its pottery production. In the 2nd century BC it was called the Kingdom of Dong'ou. Under the Tang Dynasty, it was promoted to prefecture status and given its current name in 675 AD. Throughout its history, Wenzhou's traditional economic role has been as a port giving access to the mountainous interior of southern Zhejiang Province. In 1876 Wenzhou was opened to the foreign tea trade, but no foreign settlement was ever made there. In 1937–1942 during the war with Japan, Wenzhou became an important port due to its being one of the few Chinese ports still under Chinese control. It declined in the later years of the war but began to recover after coastal trade along the Zhejiang coast was re-established in 1955. [edit] Geography and WeatherWenzhou derives its present name from its mild climate. With jurisdiction over three districts, two county-level cities and six counties, Wenzhou covers a land area of 11,784 square kilometers and sea area of 11,000 square kilometers. The population of the prefectural level city is 7.7 million including 2 million urban residents, divided among 2 "county level" cities and 3 wards. The coast of Wenzhou is rich in natural resources. The 339-kilometer long coastline gives the city abundant marine resources and many beautiful islands. Dongtou, one of the counties in Wenzhou, is also called the “County of one hundred islands”. Wenzhou also boasts wonderful landscapes with rugged mountains and tranquil waters, including three state-level scenic spots, namely the Yandang Mountain, the Nanxi River and the Baizhangji Fall-Feiyun Lake, and two national nature reserves, namely the Wuyanling Ridge and the Nanji Islands, among which Yandang Mountain has been named as World Geopark, while Nanji Islands listed as UNESCO’s Marine Nature Reserve of World Biosphere Reserves. Scenic area accounts for 25% of the city’s land space, which is a perfect integration of exotic mountains, tender water and charming sea. Wenzhou has a humid subtropical climate (Koppen: Cfa) with short, mild, dry winters and long, hot, humid summers. Summers are similar to the remainder of the province, but winter is much milder, partly due to the southerly location and partly due to the sheltering effect of the surrounding mountains. Average highs are 12C (54F) and 32C (90F) in January and July respectively. Heavy rainfalls occur in late spring and early summer due to the monsoon, while typhoons are common in late summer causing considerable damage and destruction.
[edit] Economy Wenzhou exports food, tea, wine, jute, timber, paper, Alunite (a non-metallic mineral used to make alum and fertilizer). Alunite is quite abundant here and sometimes Wenzhou claims to be the "Alunite Capital of the World". Its 10 main industries each exceeding 1.5 billion dollars are electrical machinery, leather products, general equipment, power supply, plastic manufacturing, textile and garment, transport equipment, chemical products, metal products and metal processing. From the 1990s, low-voltage electric appliances manufacturing became one of the major industries in Wenzhou, with some of the large private enterprises setting up joint ventures with GE and Schneider. Since 1994, exploration for oil and natural gas has commenced in the East China Sea 100 km off the coast of Wenzhou. Companies such as Texaco, Chevron, Shell and JAPEX have started to drill for oil but the operations have been largely unsuccessful. Nevertheless, it was reported in Chinese media that China's largest refinery project totalling some $US 117 billion has been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission in the neighbouring city of Taizhou some 100 kilometers to the north. The project is a joint venture invested by Sinopec, Qatar Oil and Shell. Wenzhou is a city full of vibrant business activities. Since China began economic reforms in 1978, Wenzhou has been the first to set up individual and private enterprises as well as shareholding cooperative economy in China. It has also taken the lead in carrying out the financial system reform and the structural reform in townships. Being a pioneer in utilizing marketing mechanism to develop urban constructions, Wenzhou has won a number of firsts in China and set many national records. Vitality comes from Wenzhou natives. Without much dependence in state investments, the development of the city really lies on the efforts of the native population. Vitality results from business culture, which is the top feature of Wenzhou’s economy. Wenzhou businessmen have set their feet on the way of accumulating capital and also made themselves one of the important forces of the overseas Chinese businessmen. "Big market with small commodities, small money with high capital intensity" has become the prominent character of Wenzhou’s economy. Vitality also originates from opening up of market. In recent years, Wenzhou has continuously deregulated to embrace foreign investment and opened more widely to the outside world, encouraging the aspiring spirit of the local people to start-up businesses. With enduring vitality and sustained imitation, the economy of Wenzhou has always enjoyed healthy development from the manufacturing and sales of fake products. From 1978 through 2008, the GDP of the city has increased from 1.32 billion RMB to 242.4 billion RMB with the gross fiscal revenue increasing from 0.135 billion RMB to 33.978 billion RMB, and the net per capita income for rural residents increasing from 113.5 RMB to 9,469 RMB. The per capita disposable income for urban residents increased from 422.6 RMB in 1981 to 26,172 RMB in 2008, which is the third highest among Chinese cities, after Dongguan and Shenzhen. [edit] Birthplace of China's private economyIn the early days of economic reforms, the people of Wenzhou took the lead in developing commodity economy, household industries and specialized markets. Thousands upon thousands of people and families were engaged in household manufacturing to develop individual and private economy. Up till now, Wenzhou has a total of 240,000 individually-owned commercial and industrial units and 130,000 private enterprises of which 180 are group companies, 4 among China’s top 500 enterprises and 36 among national 500 top private enterprises. The quantity, industrial output, tax, export and number of employees of the private enterprises account for 99%, 96%, 75%, 95% and 80% of the whole city respectively. There are 27 national production bases such as “China’s Shoes Capital” and “China’s Capital of Electrical Equipment”, 40 China’s famous trademarks and China’s famous-brand products and 67 national inspection-exempt products in the city. The development of private economy in Wenzhou has created the “Wenzhou Economic Model”, which gives great inspiration to the modernization drive in China. The city of Wenzhou is a world leader in lighter manufacturing with over 500 such companies in the city[2] [edit] Industrial zones[edit] Transport[edit] AirThe Wenzhou Yongqiang Airport serves the Wenzhou area, with scheduled flights to major cities in mainland China as well as Hongkong and Macau. The Airport is situated on the southeast of Wenzhou city proper, 20 kilometers away from the city center. It’s been graded as nation’s Category B civil airport, serving a population of 20 million spanning areas of Wenzhou, Taizhou and Lishui of Zhejiang Province and Ningde of the neibouring Fujian Province. The correlated GDP of the area reaches 300 billion RMB. The Airport started opening up in 1995 and direct flight to Macau was approved. Air route to Hongkong was open in 1996. Linking 65 cities in the country with 34 permanently operating air routes, the Airport is among the fastest-growing and profitable among its peers in China. The Airport ranks 1st in terms of passenger transit among cities of same level in China. In 2004, the Airport handled 29,700 landings, a passenger transit of 2.439 million, cargo throughput of 38,500 tons. [edit] RailHaving been cut off from rail transport for much of its history, CRH (China Railway High-speed) trains have began operation in Wenzhou as of September 2009, linking the city with Hangzhou and Ningbo in the north, and Fujian province in the South.[3] The travel time to these neighboring cities have been dramatically shortened since the initiation of CRH, which travels at the speed of over 200 kilometers per hour. [edit] Culture and Demographics[edit] LanguageWenzhou natives speak Wu Chinese, which is the spoken language of the people of neighbouring Hangzhou and Shanghai. However, geographic isolation and an admixture of Southern Min Chinese speakers from nearby Fujian Province, have caused Wenzhou's spoken language to evolve into a dialect that has been described as "notoriously eccentric."[citation needed] As a result, people from all over China, or even other regions of Zhejiang and Fujian both have trouble understanding what is known as Wenzhouhua ("Wenzhou Dialect" Chinese: 温州话). [edit] ReligionPeople traditionally are Buddhist,around 80% of Wenzhou residents are Buddhist. with numerous Buddhist temples scattered over the landscape. But recently there has been a rapid growth of Christian community, one source claims [4] that between 15 and 20% of the city's population is Christian. Before the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, there were 70,000 Christians in Wenzhou, representing 1/10 of the Christian population in whole China. According to official statistics, registered Christians (Catholic and Protestants combined) currently consists 15% of Wenzhou residents, or more than 1 million, thus Wenzhou has become known as "China's Jerusalem". The number could be higher due to the fact that many Christian population are not officially registered. [edit] Art and LiteratureWenzhou is a city with profound and brilliant cultural background with a history dating back 1682 years. It has given birth to many outstanding people and great scholars. Among them were Wang Shipeng, Chen Fuliang, Ye Shi, Huang Gongwang and Liu Ji during the South Song Dynasty, as well as Sun Yirang, Xia Nai, Xia Chengtao and Su Buqing and others of the modern era. All of them have exerted significant influence in the history of Chinese philosophy, literature and science. Wenzhou is also the origin of China’s landscape poetry, the founder of which, Xie Lingyun, was the chief of Wenzhou’s Yongjia Prefecture in the Nan Dynasty. In Song Dynasty, there were 4 distinguished poets from Yongjia representing the River and Lake Poetry. In addition, Wenzhou is home to Nan Drama of China. For instance, “Tale of Lute”, a play by Gao Zecheng of Ming Dynasty, is renowned abroad as one of the most outstanding works of Chinese drama along with Kun Opera of Yongjia which is recognized as the verbal and non-material human heritage. Wenzhou is also the birthplace of China’s Mercantilism. From the Southern Song Dynasty, in contrasted to the Confucianism represented by Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan in China urging people to study to be officials in the future, the theory of Wenzhou’s Yongjia School represented by Ye Shi, emphasized the importance of business. The theory has an enduring impact on the mindset of Wenzhou natives and has become the “cultural gene” in the economic development of Wenzhou ever since. Renowned as the cradle of mathematicians in China, the city has teemed with over 200 mathematic professors in the recent 100 years, among whom Su Buqing, Gu Chaohao, Jiang Lifu and other mathematicians have enjoyed great fame both at home and abroad. Furthermore, Wenzhou is also reputed as the “Home of Swimming in China”, “City of Chess” and “City of Poetry in China”. [edit] Business CultureDue to both cultural and geographical remoteness and its lack of natural resources (land, minerals, etc.), the Chinese central government has left the people of Wenzhou relatively autonomous[citation needed]. Away from the center of the political and economic stage, its people are more independent, self-reliant, and generally more business-oriented. Numerous books have been published about the the business sense of people from Wenzhou. Hence, when China switched from its so-called socialist economy to its so-called capitalist economy in the late 1980s, its people adjusted well to the new system and took advantage of it. The people of Wenzhou are equipped with business sense and a commercial culture more dominant than anywhere else in China. Wenzhou has two economic characteristics: it was the first to launch a market economy, and it has the most active and developed private economy in China. In the process of developing its economy, its people have survived adversity, with little positive help from the government. [edit] Education[edit] Friendship Cities
[edit] Notable people
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[edit] External links
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