Jinghua
City is situated in the middle of Zhejiang Province, it is directly under the
jurisdiction of the Province, its name comes from Jinghua Mountain in that area.
Neighboring Taizhou in the east, Lishui in the south, Quzhou in the west,
Shaoxing and Hangzhou in the north, it covers an area of 10,918 square
kilometers, among which 40.8% is mountainous areas, 41.58% is highland and
17.62% is plains. By the end of 1997, there were 180340 hectares of farmland.
Jinghua is located in the eastern part of Jingqu Basin, the terrain tilts from
the north and south to the middle. ¡°Mountains in three directions and basins
scattered with three rivers mixed¡± reflects the basic features of that area.
There is Dapan and Huiji Mountain in the east and northeast, Xianxia Ling
Mountain in the south, there is Longmen Mountain and Qianli Mountain in the
north and northwest, among which 208 mountains are over 1000 meters. Mountains
in the area is mostly between 500-1000 meter, which distributed in south and
north side of the area. There are highlands with mild fluctuant scattered in the
mountain area. The middle part of the city is situated in the eastern part of
Jinqu Basin with Wuyi, Yongkang, Nanma , Pujiang and Duntou Basins decorated
within. From the east of Weishan Town of Dongyang City to the west of Youbu Town
of Lanxi City, it stretches out for over 100 km with extend of 10 km. Within
those basins, there are low hills which altitude is between 50-250 meter and the
relative height is less than 100 meter. In the bottom of the basin, there is
usually low-lying plains. The upper reaches of Dongyang River flows from the
east to west across Yiwu, joined by Wuyi River in Wucheng and then to Jinhua
River. Jinhua River flows to the north and joined by Qujiang River in Lanxi and
flows to Lan River. Lan River flows to the north to Xinanjiang City in
Jiangjunyan. The downtown area of Jinghua is situated in the meeting point of
Dongyang River, Wuyi River and Jinghua River and covers an area of 301 square
kilometers including 25 square kilometer of satellite towns. It belongs to the
sub-tropical monsoon climate with distinct seasons and mild temperature and rich
heat and adequate precipitation and with distinct dry and wet seasons. With
relatively early spring and a short autumn, long and hot summer and
complementary heat and sunshine winter, the basins have own diverse climate and
frequent disastrous weather.
During
the Qin and Han Dynasty, it belonged to Wushang of Huiji County. Dongyang was
started to use as the name in the 1st year of Baoding era of Wu Kingdom of the
Three Kingdom Period (266 ), and changed into Jinghua County from the 3rd year
of Chentianjia era of Nanchao Dynasty (562). The name was changed into Wuzhou in
593 of Sui Emperor and then changed into Wuzhou Lu in 1276, the name of Jinghua
Fu was changed into Wuzhou Lu, and Jinhua Fu in 1360, the name was remained till
the end of Qing Dynasty. In the 1st year of the Republic of China (1912), the
system of Fu was abolished, province and county system replaced the previous
one. Jinghua Dao was established in 1914-1927, with former Quzhou and Yanzhou Fu
under its jurisdiction. The administrative Supervision District was set up
during the Republic period. On May 7, 1949, the 8th Administrative District of
Zhejiang Province was established when Jinghua was liberalized. In October the
same year, it changed into Jinghua Special District. Quzhou Special District was
abolished and then merged into Jinghaua Special District. Later on, the cities
and counties under its jurisdiction has been adjusted from time to time. In
April 1968, Jinghua Special District was changed into Jinghua District. In May
1985, Jinghua District was abolished and Jinghua and Quzhou of county level
cities were combined into a city, a system of county under municipal
jurisdiction came into implementation. Wuchen District was set up within Jinghua
City and Jinghua County was set up in rural area. At the same time, Lanxi County
was abolished, instead, Lanxi City was established since. In May 1988 and
October 1992, Yiwu, Dongyang and Yongkang counties were abolished and a
county-level city system was set up. By the end of 1997, there were Wucheng
District, Lanxi, Yiwu, Dongyang and Yongkang cities and Jinghua, Wuyi, Pujiang,
Pan¡¯an counties under the jurisdiction of Jinghua City. Altogether, there are
109 towns, 82 villages, and 7 neighborhood communities, 5934 administrative
villages, 313 neighborhood societies, with a population of 4.4 million of which
331,400 is urban residents.