Lishui City is situated in southwest of Zhejiang Province where Zhejiang and Fujian province joined. The mountain of the area belongs to Wuyi mountain system, there are Xianxialing Mountain, Donggong Mountain and Kuocang Mountain. The Terrain tilts from the southwest to the northeast with 3573 peaks of over 1000 meter. The highest mountain in Zhejiang Province of an altitude of 1929 meter is Huangmao Peak of Fengyang Mountain in Longquan City. The area covers 17,298 square kilometer of farmland area, among which 88.42% is mountainous areas, 5.52% is plantation land, 6.06% is creek, road and village. It is an area of 90% mountain, 5% rivers and lakes, 5% farmlands.

Lishui enjoys a long history, during the ¡°Liangchu Culture¡± period 4000 years ago, there were tribes living in the area. Chuzhou was established in 589 in Sui Dynasty with Kuocang, Songyang, Linhai, Yongjia, Angu and Lechen counties under its jurisdiction. The area is just the same scope of current Wenzhou, Taizhou and Lishui city. Three years later, the name was changed into Kuozhou and to Yongjia County in the 3rd year of Daye era ( 607). The name was changed back to Kuozhou in 621 of Tang Dynasty, to Jinyun County in the 1st year of Tianbao era (742) and back to Kuozhou in the 1st year of Qianyuan era (758). The name of the area was changed again in the year 1276 of Yuan Dynasty into Chuzhou Lu, Annan Fu in the 19th year of Zhizheng (1359). And the name was maintained as Chuzhou Fu till Ming and Qing Dynasty. In the year 1935, Lishui Administrative Supervision District was set up. In 1949, Lishui Special District was established, and was abolished in 1952, recovered in 1963. The area was changed into Lishui Administrative Area. By the year 1997, there were Lishui, Longquan cities, Qingtian, Jinyun, Yunhe, Qingyuan, Suichang, Songyang and Jingning counties under its jurisdiction. Jingning is the only She nationality Autonomous County in the nation. The nine cities and counties are all ¡°traditional basis for liberalization¡±. There are 129 villages, 65 towns, 3661 administrative villages, 156 neighborhood communities with a population of 2.45 million.

Under the guide of basic line of the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Congress, the local government has transformed its work priority to economic development. The government put forward the policy of ¡°forestry as the top priority, combining food and livestock husbandry, multi-management, comprehensive development¡± and enhanced the quick agricultural development. The area set out for the discussion of ¡°open-mind¡± so as to get rid of the unreconstructed ideas. In 1985, the local government proposed the guide line of ¡°emancipate the mind, open to the outside, take a bold reforming attitude, quicken the space and realize double development ahead of schedule¡± and promoted the development of commodity economy. In 1991, the whole area set out for the great discussion of open-mind and concept innovation, the development strategy of ¡°two alongs and one town¡± ( to develop along the River, to run markets along road and develop industry in towns) has taken shape. This has played an active role in the development of overall agricultural, market construction and township industries. From 1994 to 1995, the area set out for further discussion of ¡°open mind¡±, by overcoming the idea of satisfactory of primary achievement, satisfactory with poverty, unconcerned about environmental issues, self-close-in, enhance the awareness of crisis, competitiveness, promotion, foreign-oriented and pragmatism. The strategy for development of ¡°optimize circumstances, increase the overall volume, shake off poverty and make rich so as to the better-off ¡± has been draft and put into implementation and great achievements has been attained in the construction of two civilizations.

During the two decades from 1978-1997, the overall GDP of the area increased from 480 million yuan to 11.2 billion yuan, the overall industrial and agricultural volume increased from 601 million yuan to 18.1 billion yuan. There has been a great readjustment in terms of industrial structure, the first industry decreased from 58.19% to 30.85%, the second industry from 21.53% to 36.52%, the tertiary industry from 20.28% to 32.63%. The fixed asset investment increased form 350 million yuan to 2.1 billion yuan, social consumption retail volume increased from 222 million yuan to 4.26 billion yuan, fiscal revenue increased from 57 million yuan to 646 billion yuan. The surplus of financial system in the end of the year increase from 123 million yuan to 9.82 billion yuan, the surplus of loans increased from 145 million yuan to 6.57 billion yuan, the per capita income of rural residents increased from 131 yuan to 2305 yuan, the per capita disposable income of urban residents increased from 402.72 yuan of 1980 to 6614 yuan of 1997. As a result , the goal of primarily shaking off poverty of the area has been realized as expected.