WUXI

'无锡市
Wúxī Shì'

Wuxi is highlighted on this map
'Administration Type'	Prefecture-level city
'City Seat'	Chong'an District ()
'Area' '- Total' '- Urban center'	4,787.61 km² 1,659 km²
'Population' '- Total' '- Urban center'	4,471,900 (2004) 2,235,700 (2004)
'GDP' '- Total' '- Per Capita'	¥235 billion (2004) ¥52,825 (2004)
'Major Nationalities'	Han
'County-level divisions'	8
'Township-level divisions'	73
'CPC Committee Secretary'	Yang Weize (杨卫泽)
'Mayor'	Mao Xiaoping (毛小平)
'Area code'	510
'Postal Code'	214000 (Urban center) 214200, 214400 (Other areas)
'License Plate Prefix'	苏B

'Wuxi' (; former spellings: Wu-hsi, Wuhsi, or Wusih; lit. "Without Tin") is an old industrial city in Jiangsu province, People's Republic of China. Split into halves by Lake Taihu, Wuxi borders Changzhou to the west and Suzhou to the east. The northern half looks across to Taizhou to the north over the Yangtze River, while the southern half also borders the province of Zhejiang to the south. Because of its recent development, Wuxi has been dubbed the "little Shanghai".

Contents

Administration

Geography

History

Economy

Culture

Transportation

Folklore

Tourism

Natural

Manmade Parks

Notable people

See also

External links

Administration

The prefecture-level city of Wuxi administers 9 county-level divisions, including 7 districts and 2 county-level cities.

★ Chong'an District (崇安区)

★ Nanchang District (南长区)

★ Beitang District (北塘区)

★ Binhu District (滨湖区)

★ Huishan District (惠山区)

★ Xishan District (锡山区)

★ Wuxi New District （无锡新区）

★ Jiangyin City (江阴市)

★ Yixing City (宜兴市)
These are further divided into 73 township-level divisions, including 59 towns and 24 subdistricts.

Geography

The city plan, as is typical of many older Chinese cities, is of a central city with a roughly circular plan, crisscrossed with older canals, the main canal still seeing heavy barge traffic.
Wuxi itself is on an alluvial plain of deep sedimentary deposits cut between limestone foothills, making it one of the sources for "scholar's rocks", the intricately weathered stones which were used as devices for contemplation.
Wuxi ranges from a very hot summer to a chilly winter, having an average annual temperature of 18 °C, though it seldom sees snow. Because of its proximity to the East China Sea, it has a monsoon season and receives 100 cm of rain annually.

History

'Zhou Dynasty'
Wuxi was founded 3,000 years ago by two fugitive princes, Taibo and Zhongyong, of Zhou from northern China, who intended to give their brother "Jili" the throne. The two princes settled down in "meili', which is believed to be today's Meicun of Wuxi (albeit some historic records lead to somewhere in today's Suzhou). They helped developing local agriculture and waterways and soon this area flourished. After the death of Taibo,because Taibo has no son, the emperor of Zhou named a descendent of his family king of kindom "Wu". The king called his kindom itself "Gowu". Taibo's shrine was setup in today's Meicun and the original wood structure was destroyed during the wars over the history. It has been renovated several times and today's architecture is mostly from Qing dynesty. A stone carved with Confucious' comment can still be seen in today's Taibo Shine.
'Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period'
Wu became one of the strongest kindoms during the spring and autumn period. Sunzi, who wrote the famous "the Art of War" came to Wu and helped the king in military. Wu was considered one of the five strongest kindoms during Spring and Autumn Period (春秋五霸). Some Sunzi's descendents are still living in Sunxiang in Wuxi near the Plum Garden. However Wu was defeated by Yue (today's Zhejiang and Fujian) later on, which was also defeated by Chu later and Wu became part of Chu during the Warring States Period.
'Qin and Han Dynasty'
The culture and economy center of "Wu" area shifted to Suzhou after Yinzheng, the first emperor united China and Wuxi belongs to Suzhou back then. During Han dynesty, Wuxi was setup as a county by the emperor Wudi. Historic records showed that Tin mine was
discovered during the early ages of Han and conflicts arouse in this area because of Tin. Soon it ran out of Tin and some people think this is the reason why it was called Wuxi(No tin), but some hostorians disagree with this opinion and think "Wu" is just the local dialect, which has rich auxiliary words with not much meaning just like Suzhou was called "Gusu" and Wu was called "Gowu" and the name was changed to Youxi (with Tin) during Wang Mang conflicts period just because Wang wanted to change to a different name.
'Six dynasties, Tang and Song Dynasties'
Agriculture and silk industry flourished in Wuxi especially after the construction of the great canal. Although, Suzhou became a bigger center of Wu area, Wuxi is an important county of Wu.
'Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties and on'
The agriculture (rice and fish as major products) and industry continued to develop and until the early 20th century, Wuxi became a center of the textile industry in China and one of the four most important rice markets nation wide. After the PRC was set up by
communist in 1949, Wuxi continued to grow in importance, with the establishment of more textile production and both light and heavy industry. However, its developmental model was criticized among people because of the cost of environmental deterioration. New Strategies are demanded by the people to ensure its continuous development.

Economy

Currently Wuxi is designated an investment grade city, and has two large industrial parks devoted to new industry. While current manufacturing centers on textiles, there is a project to move to electric motor manufacturing and MRP software development.
According to most recent figures (2002) from the local government, 24% of economic activity is textile trade, and another 25% is industrial based manufacturing, including motors, molds and casting, with another 8% being light industry.
The GDP per capita was ¥52,825 (ca. US$6,382) in 2004, ranked no.9 among all 659 Chinese cities, and ranked no.2 in Jiangsu Province, less than Suzhou but more than the capital city Nanjing.
The center of the city is filled with modern high rise buildings and the market is being redeveloped in a postmodern style.

Culture

Wuxi was originally a mining town, which, legend has it, exhausted its tin deposits, hence its name, which in Chinese literally means "tinless". It subsequently became an arts and cultural center, with several famous Chinese authors claiming Wuxi as their home town. Among them, most recently, Qian Zhongshu, author of ''Fortress Besieged'', a comedy of manners set in China in the 1930s.
One of the handicraft specialties of Wuxi is the production of Huishan clay figurines.
In modern times Wuxi has produced a number of cultural figures such as Hua Yanjun (1893-1950) also known as Xiazi Abing (瞎子阿炳), famous for his erhu and pipa music. Another famous musician is Liu Tianhua, who was the first to compile folk music using staff.
As for cuisine, Wuxi is famous for its Wuxi-style spareribs, sweetened pork mini buns and oil gluten.

Transportation

By rail, Wuxi is conveniently situated on the Jinghu Railway, linking it directly with the provincial capital of Nanjing (2 hour train-ride) and China's economic hub, Shanghai (2 hours train-ride). K-series trains all stop at Wuxi. Wuxi Airport, which opened in 2004, is situated 14km from city centre, and has direct flights to Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and other Chinese cities.

Folklore

The nine peaks of Huishan, in Xihui Park on the western outskirts of Wuxi, are said to be the sleeping sons of the legendary Dragon King.
The cleverness of Wuxi natives is legendary. A popular joke is that "they can sell you meat that is really bones and they sell you dumplings that are just air inside", i.e. Wuxi pork ribs and Wuxi fried tofu dumplings, which are hollow. Some consider this trait untrustworthy.

Tourism

Wuxi is a tourist spot in the Lower Yangtze Delta. It has both natural and man-made places of interest.

Natural

Lake Tai: The city was built on its shore. Naturally the lake becomes a rich tourism resource.
Famous spots include Yuantou Zhu (the Islet of Turtlehead), Taihu Xiandao (Islands of the Deities).

Xi Shan, Huishan: Literally means "Mountain of Tin" and "Mountain of Kindheartedness". They are two small hills located at the western part of the city.

The Great Canal: It passes the city. There are two canals: one is the old canal that has been there ever since it was dugged, the other is the new canal dug after the year 1949.

Manmade Parks

Wuxi is famous for the many private gardens or parks built by learned scholars and rich people in the past. Among them, Li Yuan, Mei Yuan are good examples that have been well preserved. Xihui Gongyuan (Xihui Park), located at the foot of Xi Shan also houses historical relics.

Notable people

★ Gu Kaizhi (latter half of the 4th century), a painter.

★ Li Sheng (772-846), poet, who lived and was buried in Wuxi.

★ Gu Xiancheng (1550-1612), scholar and politician, especially famous of "Dong Lin Movement".

★ Xu Xiake (1587–1641), Ming Dynasty traveller and writer.

★ Hua Hengfang (1833-1902), mathematics in late Qing Dynasty who did studies in various area of science and technology. He participated in designing the first streamer and the first steamboat in China.

★ Xue Fucheng (1838－1894), well-known ideologists, diplomatists and one of leading exponents to make national bourgeoisie reform in late Qing Dynasty.

★ Rong Desheng (1875-1952), the largest national capitalist in the Min Guo era, most famed for his contribution to th Chinese texitle industry.

★ Hua Yanjun (1893-1950) also known as Abing (阿丙), folk musician, best known for his work "Er Quan Ying Yue" (moon reflected on ''Er'' stream) for the erhu.

★ Xu Beihong (1895–1953), painter, most famed for his paintings of horses.

★ Qian Zhongshu (1910–1998), writer, best known for his comedy of manners ''Fortress Besieged''.

★ Ding Junhui (1987-), teenage Snooker sensation.
==Sister Cities==

★ Cascais, Portugal (September 14, 1993)

★ Akashi, Japan (since August 29, 1981)

★ Chattanooga, USA (October 12, 1982)

★ Sagamihara, Japan (August 6, 1985)

★ Hamilton, New Zealand (July 5, 1986)

★ Scarborough, Canada (April 10, 1996)

★ Alameda, USA (2004)

★ Bocholt, Germany

★ Ballerup, Egedal and Frederikssund municipalities, Denmark (2007)
The two county-level cities administered by Wuxi, Jiangyin and Yixing, are also twinned with:

★ Belo Horizonte, Brazil (November 18, 1996)

★ Novo Mesto, Slovenia (May 6, 1994)

See also

★ Jiangnan

★ List of cities in the People's Republic of China by population

External links

★ Government website of Wuxi (available in Chinese, Japanese and English)

★ Wuxi city guide with open directory (Jiangsu Network)

★ English Expat Online Community (available in English)

★ Wuxi small guide