Yangtze Delta

Yangtze River Delta 長江三角洲 / 长江三角洲 Cháng Jiāng Sānjiǎozhōu
File:Yangtze River Delta.jpg
Country	CHN
Major Cities	Shanghai Nanjing Hangzhou Suzhou Ningbo Nantong Wuxi Wenzhou Changzhou Zhenjiang Jiaxing Huzhou

Yangtze Delta
Traditional Chinese	長江三角洲
Simplified Chinese	长江三角洲
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin >Cháng Jiāng Sānjiǎozhōu

The Yangtze River Delta or Yangtze Delta, also called Yangzi, or Chang Jiang Delta, Rive Chang Delta Tai Lake Region or the Golden Triangle of the Yangtze (simplified Chinese: 长江三角洲; traditional Chinese: 長江三角洲; Hanyu Pinyin: ), generally comprises the triangular-shaped territory of Wu-speaking Shanghai, southern Jiangsu province and northern Zhejiang province of China. The area lies at the heart of the region traditionally called Jiangnan (literally, "south of the Yangtze River"). The Yangtze river drains into the East China Sea. In modern times the area is home to an economy the size of a medium-sized developed country, encompassing a GDP (when measured to purchasing power parity) of some $2 Trillion US, which is 21% of the national economy (about the size of that of France, 2,046,899 MM$ in 2007 according to the International Monetary Fund). The urban build-up in the area has given rise what may be the largest concentration of adjacent metropolitan areas in the world. It covers an area of 99600 km² and is home to over 80 million people as of 2007, of which an estimated 50 million are urban.

Early history

The area near the Southern Dynasties period, the Yangtze Delta has been a main cultural and economic center of China. Key cities of the region in pre-modern times include Suzhou (Wu), Nanjing, Hangzhou and Shaoxing.

Population

The delta is one of the most densely populated regions on earth, and includes one of the world's largest cities on its banks—Shanghai, with a density of 2,700 inhabitants/km². Because of the large population of the delta, and factories, farms, and other cities upriver, the World Wide Fund for Nature says the Yangtze Delta is the biggest cause of marine pollution in the Pacific Ocean.

Most of the people in this region speak Wu Chinese (sometimes called Shanghainese, although Shanghainese is actually one of the dialects within the Wu group of Chinese) as their mother tongue, in addition to Mandarin. Wu is mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese, including Mandarin.

The area of the Yangtze Delta incorporates twenty relatively developed municipalities in three provinces. The term can be generally used to refer to the entire region extending as far north as Lianyungang, Jiangsu and as far south as Taizhou, Zhejiang. The region includes some of the fastest-growing economies in China in recent years, and as of 2004 has occupied over 21% of China's total gross GDP.

The Metropolitan Areas

Since the 9th century, the Yangtze Delta has been the most populous area in China, East Asia, and one of the most densely populated areas of the world. During the mid to late period of Tang Dynasty (618-907), the region emerged as an economic centre, and the Yangtze River Delta became the most important agricultural, handicraft industrial and economic center for the late Tang China.

In Song Dynasty, especially during the South Song Dynasty period (1127–1279), with its capital situated in Lin'an (Now Hangzhou), Hangzhou became the biggest city in the East Asia (and some claim, in the world) with a population more than 1.5 million, and the economic status of the Yangtze Delta became more enhanced. Ningbo became one of the two biggest seaports in East Asia along with Quanzhou (in Fujian Province)

During the mid-late Ming Dynasty period (1368–1644), the first capitalism bud of the East Asia was born and developed in this area, although it was disrupted by the Manchurian invasion and controlled strictly and carefully by the Confucian central government in Beijing, it continued its development slowly throughout the rest of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the delta became the a large financial centre for the country. And also played the most important role in Agriculture and handicraft industry.

During the Qianlong Era (1735-1796), Shanghai began developing rapidly and became the largest port in the Far East. From late 19th century to early 20th century, Shanghai was the biggest commercial center in the Far East. And the Yangtze River Delta became the first industrialized area in China. After the Chinese economic reform program, which began in 1978, Shanghai again became the most important economic center in mainland China, and is emerging to become one of Asia's centres for commerce. In modern times, the Yangtze Delta metropolitan areas are centred at Shanghai, and also flanked by the major metropolitan areas of Hangzhou, Suzhou, Ningbo, and Nanjing, home to nearly 90 million people (of which an estimated 80 million are urban residents), is the center of Chinese economic development, and surpasses other concentrations of metropolitan regions (including the Pearl River Delta) in the People's Republic of China in terms of economic growth, productivity and per capita income.

Cities

• Urban cores: Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Ningbo
• Jiangsu Province: Suzhou (including county-level urban centres of Changshu, Taicang, Kunshan, and Zhangjiagang), Wuxi (including county-level urban centers of Yixing and Jiangyin), Nantong (including County-level urban cores of Qidong and Tongzhou), Changzhou, Zhenjiang (including county-level urban centre of Danyang), Yangzhou, Taizhou
• Zhejiang Province: Hangzhou's county-level urban centres of Jiande, Fuyang and Lin'an; Ningbo (including county-level urban centre of Cixi), Shaoxing, Jiaxing, Huzhou, Zhoushan, Taizhou, Jinhua (including urban centre of Yiwu)
• In addition, the Shanghai districts of Minhang, Jinshan, Jiading and Pudong, although nominally "districts", are all municipal-level in administration (Pudong is sub-provincial in administrative status), and all have de facto separate urban planning systems.

Chinese	Hanyu Pinyin	City	Population	Image	Information
上海	Shanghai	Shanghai	18,884,600	File:Pudong-Puxi.jpg	Detail of the city Here
南京	Nanjing	Nanjing	7,413,000		Detail of the city Here
杭州	Hangzhou	Hangzhou	6,776,400		Detail of the city Here
苏州/ 蘇州	Suzhou	Suzhou	6,073,000		Detail of the city Here
宁波/ 寧波	Ningbo	Ningbo	5,681,000		Detail of the city Here
南通	Nantong	Nantong	7,737,900		Detail of the city Here
无锡/ 無錫	Wuxi	Wuxi	4,471,900		Detail of the city Here
常州	Changzhou	Changzhou	3,489,000		Detail of the city Here
镇江/ 鎮江	Zhenjiang	Zhenjiang	2,672,100	[[Image:|150px]]	Detail of the city Here
嘉兴/ 嘉興	Jiaxing	Jiaxing	3,355,500	[[Image:|150px]]	Detail of the city Here
湖州	Huzhou	Huzhou	2,570,000	[[Image:|150px]]	Detail of the city Here
舟山	Zhoushan	Zhoushan	969,145	[[Image:|150px]]	Detail of the city Here

Transportation

The area is home to a very extensive transportation network that include railways and expressways. The area has one of the highest private vehicle ownership rates in the country, and traffic rules governing Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Zhejiang are relatively strict compared to the rest of the country.

The region is served by some of the country's largest seaports:

• Port of Shanghai, sea & river, the world's largest cargo port in 2005
• Port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, sea & river, the world's 4th largest cargo port in 2005
• Port of Lianyungang, sea port
• Port of Suzhou, river & lake
• Port of Wenzhou, sea & river

The region has five major airports, whose area of coverage is generally around an-hour's drive's length from any point of the Delta. They include:

• Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and Shanghai Pudong International Airport, hub of Shanghai Airlines and China Eastern Airlines; the two airports combined serve the heaviest air traffic flow in China
• Nanjing Lukou International Airport, situated in Nanjing, Jiangsu
• Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, situated in Hangzhou, Zhejiang
• Ningbo Lishe International Airport, situated in Ningbo, Zhejiang

Main bridges:

• Donghai Bridge, Shanghai-Yangshan deep water port (Port or Shanghai), 32.5km.
• Hangzhou Bay Bridge, Ningbo-Shanghai, 36km,the world's longest sea-cross bridge
• Runyang Bridge
• Jiangyin Suspension Bridge
• Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge
• Lupu Bridge, Puxi-Pudong

Climate

Average temperatures (red) and precipitation (blue) in Shanghai

The Yangtze Delta has a marine monsoon subtropical climate, and the weather is generally warm and humid. Winter temperatures can drop as low as -10°C (a record), however, and even in springtime, large temperature fluctuations can occur.

Fishing and agriculture

The Yangtze River Delta contains the most fertile soils in all of China. Rice is the dominant crop of the delta, but further inland fishing rivals it. In Qing Pu, 50 ponds, containing five different species of fish, produce 29,000 tons of fish each year. One of the biggest fears of fish farmers in this region is that toxic water will seep into their man-made lagoons and threaten their livelihood.

See also

• Pearl River Delta

References

• Asia Times Online, June 2, 2005 - [1]
• PBS.org, Journey to Planet Earth, Yangtze River Delta, China - [2]
• United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) - [3]

• Economic profile for the Yangtze River Delta at HKTDC

External links

• Golden Triangle extending to become a parallelogram?
• Constructing the next world megacity: The Yangtze Delta