Jiangsu

Jiangsu's name is a compound of the first elements of the names of the two cities of Jiangning (now Nanjing) and Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" (Sū), the second character of its name.[6]

During the earliest Chinese dynasties, the area that is now Jiangsu was far away from the center of Chinese civilization, which was in the northwest Henan; it was home of the Huai Yi (淮夷), an ancient ethnic group. During the Zhou dynasty more contact was made, and eventually the state of Wu appeared in southern Jiangsu, one of the many hundreds of states that existed across northern and central China at that time. Near the end of the Spring and Autumn period, Wu became a great power under King Helu of Wu, and defeated in 484 BC the state of Qi, a major power in the north in modern-day Shandong province, and contest for the position of overlord over all states of China. The state of Wu was subjugated in 473 BC by the state of Yue, another state that had emerged to the south in modern-day Zhejiang province. Yue was in turn subjugated by the powerful state of Chu from the west in 333 BC. Eventually the state of Qin swept away all the other states, and unified China in 221 BC.[7]

One of the tortoise stelae of Xiao Dan (478–522), a member of the Liang royal family. Ganjiaxiang, Qixia District, near Nanjing

Under the reign of the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD), Jiangsu was removed from the centers of civilization in the North China Plain, and was administered under two zhou (provinces): Xu Province in the north, and Yang Province in the south. During the Three Kingdoms period, southern Jiangsu became the base of the Eastern Wu (222 to 280), whose capital, Jianye (later renamed to Jiankang), is modern Nanjing. When nomadic invasions overran northern China in the 4th century, the imperial court of the Jin dynasty moved to Jiankang. Cities in southern and central Jiangsu swelled with the influx of migrants from the north. Jiankang remained as the capital for four successive Southern dynasties and became the largest commercial and cultural center in China.[8]

The Huqiu Tower of Tiger Hill, Suzhou, built in 961.

After the Sui dynasty united the country in 581, the political center of the country shifted back to the north, but the Grand Canal was built through Jiangsu to link the Central Plain with the prosperous Yangtze Delta. The Tang dynasty (618–907) relied on southern Jiangsu for annual deliveries of grain. It was during the Song dynasty (960–1279), which saw the development of a wealthy mercantile class and emergent market economy in China, that Jiangnan (southern Jiangsu, Shanghai, and adjacent areas) emerged as a center of trade. From then onwards, major cities like Suzhou or Yangzhou, would be synonymous with opulence and luxury in China. Today the region remains one of the richest parts of China.

The Jurchen Jin dynasty gained control of North China in 1127 during the Jin-Song wars, and Huai River, which used to cut through north Jiangsu to reach the Yellow Sea, was the border between the north, under the Jin, and the south, under the Southern Song dynasty. The Mongols took control of China in the thirteenth century. The Ming dynasty, which was established in 1368 after driving out the Mongols who had occupied China, initially put its capital in Nanjing. Regions surrounding Nanjing, corresponding to Jiangsu and Anhui today, were designated as the Nanzhili province (literally "southern directly governed"). Following a coup by Zhu Di (later, the Yongle Emperor), however, the capital was moved to Beijing, far to the north, although Nanjing kept its status as the southern capital. In late Ming, Jiangnan continued to be an important center of trade in China; some historians see in the flourishing textiles industry at the time incipient industrialization and capitalism, a trend that was however aborted.

The Beisi Pagoda of Suzhou, built between 1131 and 1162 during the Song dynasty, 76 m (249 ft) tall.

The Qing dynasty converted Nanzhili to "Jiangnan province"; in 1666 Jiangsu and Anhui were split apart as separate provinces. Jiangsu's borders have been for the most part stable since then.

With the start of the Western incursion into China in the 1840s, the rich and mercantile Yangtze river delta was increasingly exposed to Western influence; Shanghai, originally an unremarkable little town of Jiangsu, quickly developed into a metropolis of trade, banking, and cosmopolitanism, and was split out later as an independent municipality. Jiangnan also figures strongly in the Taiping Rebellion (1851 – 1864), a massive and deadly rebellion that attempted to set up a Christian theocracy in China; it started far to the south, in Guangdong province, swept through much of South China, and by 1853, had established Nanjing as its capital, renamed as Tianjing (天京 "Heavenly Capital").

The Republic of China was established in 1912,[9] and China was soon torn apart by warlords. Jiangsu changed hands several times, but in April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek established a government at Nanking; he was soon able to bring most of China under his control. This was however interrupted by the second Sino-Japanese War, which began full-scale in 1937; on December 13, 1937, Nanjing fell, and the combined atrocities of the occupying Japanese for the next three months would come to be known as the Nanjing Massacre. Nanjing was the seat of the collaborationist government of East China under Wang Jingwei, and Jiangsu remained under Japanese occupation until the end of the war in 1945.

After the war, Nanking was once again the capital of the Republic of China, though now the Chinese Civil War had broken out between the Kuomintang government and Communist forces, based further north, mostly in Northeast China. The decisive Huaihai Campaign was fought in northern Jiangsu; it resulted in Kuomintang defeat, and the communists were soon able to cross the Yangtze River and take Nanking. The Kuomintang fled southward and eventually ended up in Taipei, from which the Republic of China government continues to administer Taiwan, Pescadores, and its neighboring islands, though it also continues to claim (technically, at least) Nanjing as its rightful de jure capital.

After communist takeover, Peking (formerly Peiping, later spelled as Beijing) was made capital of the People's Republic, and Nanjing was demoted to be the provincial capital of Jiangsu. The economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping initially focused on the south coast of China, in Guangdong province, which soon left Jiangsu behind; starting from the 1990s they were applied more evenly to the rest of China. Suzhou and Wuxi, two southern cities of Jiangsu in close proximity to neighboring Shanghai, have since become particularly prosperous, being among the top 10 cities in China in terms of gross domestic product and outstripping the provincial capital of Nanjing. The income disparity between northern and southern Jiangsu however remains large.

Population density and low elevation coastal zones in Jiangsu. Jiangsu is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise.

Jiangsu in 1936

Tourists cross a bridge in Chengxu temple, a Taoist temple which was built in 1086-1093 during the Song Dynasty

Jiangsu is flat, with plains covering 68 percent of its total area (water covers another 18 percent). Most of the province stands not more than 50 metres (160 ft) above sea level. Jiangsu also has a well-developed irrigation system, which earned it (especially the southern half) the moniker of 水乡 (shuǐxiāng "land of water"). The southern city of Suzhou has so many canals that it has been dubbed "Venice of the East" or the "Venice of the Orient."[10][11] The Grand Canal of China cuts through Jiangsu from north to south, crossing all the east-west river systems. Jiangsu also borders the Yellow Sea. The Yangtze River, the longest river of China, cuts through the province in the south and reaches the East China Sea, which divides the region into two parts: more urban, prosperous south and more poorer, rural north, and these two parts has a tense division.[12] Mount Yuntai, near the city of Lianyungang, is the highest point in Jiangsu, at an altitude of 625 metres (2,051 ft) above sea level. Large lakes in Jiangsu include Lake Tai (the largest), Lake Hongze, Lake Gaoyou, Lake Luoma, and Lake Yangcheng.

Before 1194 A.D., the Huai River cut through north Jiangsu to reach the Yellow Sea. The Huai River is a major river in central China, and it was the traditional border between North China and South China. Since 1194 A.D., the Yellow River further to the north changed its course several times, running into the Huai River in north Jiangsu each time instead of its other usual path northwards into Bohai Bay. The silting caused by the Yellow River was so heavy that after its last episode of "hijacking" the Huai River ended in 1855: the Huai River was no longer able to go through its usual path into the sea. Instead it flooded, pooled up (thereby forming and enlarging Lake Hongze and Lake Gaoyou), and flowed southwards through the Grand Canal into the Yangtze. The old path of the Huai River is now marked by a series of irrigation channels, the most significant of which is the North Jiangsu Main Irrigation Canal (苏北灌溉总渠), which channels a small amount of the water of the Huai River alongside south of its old path into the sea.

Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing

Most of Jiangsu has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa or Cwa in the Köppen climate classification), beginning to transition into a humid continental climate (Köppen Dwa) in the far north. Seasonal changes are clear-cut, with temperatures at an average of −1 to 4 °C (30 to 39 °F) in January and 26 to 29 °C (79 to 84 °F) in July. Rain falls frequently between spring and summer (meiyu), typhoons with rainstorms occur in late summer and early autumn. As with the rest of the coast, tornados are possible. The annual average rainfall is 800 to 1,200 millimetres (31 to 47 in), concentrated mostly in summer during the southeast monsoon.

Major cities:[13]

Jiangsu is divided into thirteen prefecture-level divisions, all prefecture-level cities (including a sub-provincial city):

Administrative divisions of Jiangsu
Nanjing Wuxi Xuzhou Changzhou Suzhou Nantong Lianyungang Huai'an Yancheng Yangzhou Zhenjiang Taizhou Suqian Shanghai
Division code[14]	Division	Area in km2[15]	Population 2010[16]	Seat	Divisions[17]
					Districts	Counties	CL cities
320000	Jiangsu Province	102600.00	78,659,903	Nanjing city	55	19	21
320100	Nanjing city	6582.31	8,004,680	Xuanwu District	11
320200	Wuxi city	4787.61	6,372,624	Binhu District	5		2
320300	Xuzhou city	11764.88	8,580,500	Yunlong District	5	3	2
320400	Changzhou city	4384.57	4,591,972	Xinbei District	5		1
320500	Suzhou city	8488.42	10,465,994	Gusu District	5		4
320600	Nantong city	8001.00	7,282,835	Chongchuan District	3	1	3
320700	Lianyungang city	7615.29	4,393,914	Haizhou District	3	3
320800	Huai'an city	9949.97	4,799,889	Qingjiangpu District	4	3
320900	Yancheng city	16972.42	7,260,240	Tinghu District	3	5	1
321000	Yangzhou city	6591.21	4,459,760	Hanjiang District	3	1	2
321100	Zhenjiang city	3840.32	3,113,384	Jingkou District	3		3
321200	Taizhou city	5787.26	4,618,558	Hailing District	3		3
321300	Suqian city	8555.00	4,715,553	Sucheng District	2	3
Sub-provincial cities

Population distribution of Jiangsu in 2010

These prefecture-level cities are in turn subdivided into 98 county-level divisions (55 districts, 21 county-level cities, and 20 counties). Those are in turn divided into 1,488 township-level divisions (1,078 towns, 122 townships, one ethnic township, and 287 [[Subdistricts of China]subdistrict]]s). At the end of the year 2017, the total population is 80.29 million.

The politics of Jiangsu is structured in a one party (Communist) government system like all other governing institutions in mainland China.

The Governor of Jiangsu is the highest-ranking official in the People's Government of Jiangsu. However, in the province's dual party-government governing system, the Governor has less power than the Jiangsu Communist Party of China Provincial Committee Secretary, colloquially termed the "Jiangsu CPC Party Chief."

An industrial landscape in Ganjiaxiang, Qixia District, Nanjing

As of 2018, Jiangsu had a gross domestic product(GDP) of US$1.377 trillion (CN￥9.2 trillion),[19] the second-highest in China, its GDP is greater than those of Mexico and Indonesia,[20] which are the world's 15th- and 16th-largest economies, respectively. Annual economic growth is around 8%. Jiangsu' economy is the 7th-largest of any country subdivision globally, behind California, England, Tokyo, Texas, New York and Guangdong. Its GDP per capita in 2017 was US$17,176, ranking 4th in Mainland China.

The province has an extensive irrigation system supporting its agriculture, which is based primarily on rice and wheat, followed by maize and sorghum. Main cash crops include cotton, soybeans, peanuts, rapeseed, sesame, ambary hemp, and tea. Other products include peppermint, spearmint, bamboo, medicinal herbs, apples, pears, peaches, loquats, ginkgo. Silkworms form an important part of Jiangsu's agriculture, with the Lake Tai region to the south a major base of silk production in China. Jiangsu is an important producer of freshwater fish and other aquatic products.

Jiangsu has coal, petroleum, and natural gas deposits, but its most significant mineral products are non-metal minerals such as halite (rock salt), sulfur, phosphorus, and marble. The city of Xuzhou is a coal hub of China. The salt mines of Huaiyin have more than 0.4 trillion tonnes of deposits, one of the greatest collections of deposits in China.

Jiangsu is historically oriented toward light industries such as textiles and food industry. Since 1949, Jiangsu has developed heavy industries such as chemical industry and construction materials. Jiangsu's important industries include machinery, electronic, chemicals, and automobile.[21][22] The government has worked hard to promote the solar industry and hoped by 2012 the solar industry would be worth 100 billion RMB.[23] Jiangsu’s economy growth has directly benefited from the reform Chinese’s policies, and its growth trajectory reflects that of many other coastal provinces, such as Zhejiang and Shandong. [24]The economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping have greatly benefited southern cities, especially Suzhou and Wuxi, which outstrip the provincial capital, Nanjing, in total output. In the eastern outskirts of Suzhou, Singapore has built the Suzhou Industrial Park, a flagship of Sino-Singaporean cooperation and the only industrial park in China that is in its entirety the investment of a single foreign country.

Jiangsu is very wealthy among the provinces of China, with the second highest total GDP, after Guangdong Province. Its GDP per capita was 44,232 yuan in 2009, but a wealth gap between the prosperous south and poorer north has led to unequal economic growth.[21] Cities like Nanjing, Suzhou, and Wuxi have GDPs per capita around twice the provincial average, making south Jiangsu one of the most prosperous regions in China.

Jiangsu contains over 100 different economic and technological development zones devoted to different types of investments.[25]

The majority of Jiangsu residents are ethnic Han Chinese. Other minorities include the Hui and the Manchus.

Demographic indicators in 2000

Population: 74.058 million (urban: 34.637 million; rural: 39.421 million) (2003)
Birth rate: 9.04 per 1000 (2003)
Death rate: 7.03 per 1000 (2003)
Sex ratio: 102.55 males per 100 females
Average family size: 3.25
Han Chinese proportion: 99.64%
Literacy rate: 97.88%

Jiangsu is home to one of the most extensive transportation networks in China.

The four mass migrations in the 4th, 8th, 12th and 14th centuries had been influential in shaping the regional culture of Jiangsu. According to dialects and the other factors, the province can be roughly segmented four major cultural subdivisions: Wu (吴), Jinling (金陵), Huaiyang (淮扬) and Xuhuai (徐淮), from southeast to northwest. The belts of transition blurred the boundaries.[38][39][40]

The Humble Administrator's Garden, one of the classical gardens of Suzhou.

Jiangsu is rich in cultural traditions. Kunqu, originating in Kunshan, is one of the most renowned and prestigious forms of Chinese opera.[41] Pingtan, a form of storytelling accompanied by music, is also popular: it can be subdivided into types by origin: Suzhou Pingtan (of Suzhou), Yangzhou Pingtan (of Yangzhou), and Nanjing Pingtan (of Nanjing). Wuxi opera, a form of traditional Chinese opera, is popular in Wuxi, while Huaiju is popular further north, around Yancheng. Jiangsu cuisine is one of the eight great traditions of the cuisine of China.

Suzhou is also well known for its silk, Chinese embroidery, jasmine tea, stone bridges, pagodas, and classical gardens. Nearby Yixing is noted for its teaware while Yangzhou is known for its lacquerware and jadeware. Nanjing's yunjin is a noted type of woven silk.

Since ancient times, south Jiangsu has been famed for its prosperity and opulence, and simply inserting south Jiangsu place names (Suzhou, Yangzhou, etc.) into poetry gave an effect of dreaminess, as was indeed done by many famous poets. In particular, the fame of Suzhou (as well as Hangzhou in neighbouring Zhejiang) has led to the popular saying: 上有天堂，下有蘇杭 ("above there is heaven; below there are Suzhou and Hangzhou"), a saying that continues to be a source of pride for the people of these two still prosperous cities. Similarly, the prosperity of Yangzhou has led poets to dream of: 腰纏十萬貫，騎鶴下揚州 ("with a hundred thousand strings of coins wrapped around its waist, a crane landed in Yangzhou").

As of 2015, Jiangsu hosts 137 institutions of higher education, ranking first of all Chinese provinces. There are two Project 985 and 11 Project 211 universities in the province. A combination of 93 members of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering work in Jiangsu.[42]

• China Pharmaceutical University, a Project 211 university
• China University of Mining and Technology, a Project 211 university
• Hohai University, a Project 211 university
• Nanjing University, a Project 985 and Project 211 university
• Nanjing Agricultural University, a Project 211 university
• Nanjing Normal University, a Project 211 university
• Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a Project 211 university
• Nanjing University of Science and Technology, a Project 211 university
• Jiangnan University, a Project 211 university
• Jiangsu University, a National Key University
• Southeast University, a Project 985 and Project 211 university
• Soochow University, a Project 211 university

Nanjing was the capital of several Chinese dynasties and contains a variety of historic sites, such as the Purple Mountain, Purple Mountain Observatory, the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, Ming dynasty city wall and gates, Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum (the mausoleum of the first Ming Emperor, Hongwu Emperor), Xuanwu Lake, Jiming Temple, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, Nanjing Confucius Temple, Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, and the Nanjing Zoo, along with its circus. Suzhou is renowned for its classical gardens (designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site), as well as the Hanshan Temple, and Huqiu Tower. Nearby is the water-town of Zhouzhuang, an international tourist destination with Venice-like waterways, bridges and dwellings, which have been preserved over centuries. Yangzhou is known for Slender West Lake. Wuxi is known for being the home of the world's tallest Buddha statue. In the north, Xuzhou is designated as one of China's "eminent historical cities." The official travel and tourism website for Jiangsu[43] was set up in 2008.

• Lion Garden in Suzhou
• Grand Buddha at Ling Shan, Wuxi
• Chaotian Palace
• Qixia Temple
• Tianning Temple Pagoda
• Tombs of Southern Tang Emperor
• Yangzhong Puffer Fish
• Cafe Zeeland

Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre.

Professional sports teams in Jiangsu include:

• Chinese Super League
  • Jiangsu Suning F.C.
• China League Two
  • Jiangsu Yancheng Dingli F.C.
  • Nantong Zhiyun F.C.
  • Suzhou Dongwu F.C.
  • Zhenjiang Huasa F.C.
• Chinese Basketball Association
  • Jiangsu Dragons
  • Nanjing Monkey King
• Chinese Volleyball League
  • Jiangsu Zenith Steel
• China Baseball League
  • Jiangsu Pegasus

• Major national historical and cultural sites in Jiangsu
• Jiangsu-Hong Kong Personnel Training Cooperation Programme

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 江苏.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Jiangsu.

• Jiangsu Government website (in Chinese)
• Jiangsu Government website (English)
• Complete Map of the Seven Coastal Provinces from 1821 to 1850 (in English and Chinese)