Fangchenggang ( ''The port of Fangcheng'') is a

prefecture-level city A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. During the Republican era, many of China' ...

in the south of

Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ( ...

, People's Republic of China. The city was formerly called "Fangcheng Pan-Ethnicities Autonomous County" (25 December 1978 – 23 May 1993). Fangcheng is the southernmost port in China and is located in Fangchenggang. It primarily services

bulk carriers A bulk carrier or bulker is a merchant ship specially designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo — such as grains, coal, ore, steel coils, and cement — in its cargo holds. Since the first specialized bulk carrier was built in 1852, econom ...

, of up to 180,000 deadweight tonnes in size. The closest airport is located in

Nanning Nanning (; ; za, Namzningz) is the capital and largest city by population of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. It is known as the "Green City" because of its abundance of lush subtropical foliage. Located in the South of ...

, about 170 km away (4 hours drive). As of December 2018, the region had large amounts of land reclamation in progress to build new and additional ports.

History

Geography and Climate

Fangchenggang is a coastal city in southern Guangxi, bordering

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. Its area is , of that urban.

Administration

Fangchenggang has 2 urban districts, 1 county, 1 county-level city, 19 townships, 13 towns, 283 villages, and 19 sub-districts. Districts: * Gangkou District () * Fangcheng District () County-level city: * Dongxing () County: *

Shangsi County Shangsi County (; za, Sangswh Yen) is a county in the southwest of Guangxi, China. It is the northernmost county-level division The administrative divisions of China have consisted of several levels since ancient times, due to China's lar ...

()

Demographics

Fangchenggang has a total population of 717,966. Ethnic groups and their corresponding numbers are

Han Han may refer to: Ethnic groups * Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group. ** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...

390,286 or 54.36%, Zhuang 287,207 or 40% Yao 26,749 or 3.73%, Jing 12,288 or 1.71% and all other minorities combined 1,436 or 0.02%. Population density is 116 people per km² and population growth is 7.75% annually. Fangchenggang is a linguistically diverse city. The local languages include

Qin-Lian Yue Qin–Lian Languages Group (, romanization of 'Qin–Lian' in native languages is ''Hamlim'', literally 'Qinzhou and Lianzhou', a historical region) is a southern branch of Yue Chinese spoken in the coastal part of Guangxi, including 3 main citi ...

(a branch of Yue or

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

, Zhuang, Yao,

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

, of which the most dominant language is Yue.

Economy

Fanchenggang, the last part of which "gang" means port is as its name implies an important port for Guangxi, and other than Beihai the only major Chinese port on the

Tonkin Gulf The Gulf of Tonkin is a gulf at the northwestern portion of the South China Sea, located off the coasts of Tonkin (northern Vietnam) and South China. It has a total surface area of . It is defined in the west and northwest by the northern ...

. Besides port related industries there is substantial tourism, commercial fishing,

hydropower Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to Electricity generation, produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by energy transformation, converting the Pot ...

, food and beverage production, and agriculture. Agricultural products include rice, corn, peanuts, oranges, and sugarcane. Other natural resources are coal, limestone, and spring water. The first phase of

Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Plant Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Plant (), also known as Fangchenggang Hongsha Nuclear Power Plant ( 防城港红沙核电站 ), is a nuclear power plant in Fangchenggang, near Hongshacun Village ( 红沙村 ), autonomous region of Guangxi (Guangxi Z ...

, a

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...

project is under construction here. Fangchenggang is served by a railway branch from

Qinzhou Qinzhou ( postal: Yamchow, , Jyutping: ''Jam1 zau1'' (Canton) /''Ham1 zau1'' ( Local) ) is a prefecture-level city in south-central Guangxi, southern China, lying on the Gulf of Tonkin and having a total population of 3,302,238 as of the 2020 c ...

East through a half an hour train journey and to Nanning, a one and a half hour train ride. Since the end of 2013, the city's Fangchenggang North Railway Station has high-speed (D-series) train service from

. As of March 2019, there were two trains daily (T type) to Qinzhou and 9 trains (D type) daily to Nanning railway station.Fangchenggang North train schedule
/ref>

Flora and fauna

Like much of Guangxi, there are many forested mountains and stream filled valleys. The area along the border with Vietnam is relatively undeveloped and draws considerable tourism. Fangchenggang's forests contain more than 500 types of plants, more than 4000 medicinal plants and herbs, 25 species of mammals, and many species of insects, reptiles, amphibians, and birds. Many nationally protected animals can still be found in Fangchenggang such as gibbons,

frogs A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...

butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

, and

tortoises Tortoises () are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin: ''tortoise''). Like other turtles, tortoises have a turtle shell, shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, ...

. In the ocean waters, whales, dolphins, and dugongs can be seen. The city flower of Fangchenggang ''

Camellia nitidissima ''Camellia petelotii'' is a species of plant in the family Theaceae. It is found in China (endemic in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China) and Vietnam. It may be called the golden camellia and synonyms include ''C. chrysantha ...

'' (金花茶, lit. 'gloden flower tea', Mandarin: ''Jīnhuāchá'', Fangcheng Yue: ɐm˦˥ fa˦˥ tɕʰa˧˩ Fangcheng Hakka: im˦˥ fa˦˥ tɕʰa˩˧), which is and a kind of quite rare

Camellia ''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in eastern and southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are more than 220 described species, with some controversy ...

plant only attribute in the area near the border between Vietnam and Guangxi. The flowers of ''Camellia nitidissima'' are made as bagged dryed flowers for making tea and sell as a local specialty.

Culture

Tea-picking opera

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

: 採茶戲;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: Cǎichá Xì; Fangcheng Yue dialect: 採茶 ɕʰɔj˩˧.tɕʰa˨˩ Fangcheng Hakka dialect: 採茶 ɕʰɔj˨˩.tɕʰa˩˧/small>

Tea-picking opera A Tea-picking opera () is a form of musical entertainment. It originally derived from the tea-growing region around Mount Jiulong in the South of Jiangxi Province in China, where the tea pickers would sing lengthy songs to each other whilst undert ...

is the most popular traditional Chinese opera in Fangchenggang, in some grant occasions, celebrations and events such as fuels, traditionally the organizers of those will hire a Tea-picking opera theatre company to perform. Opera theatre also perform on a provisional and simple stage held by themselves on the side of streets, those locations are often fixedly chosen. Nowadays, tea-picking opera actors generally speak Fangcheng Yue dialect in performances, but not entirely, they always consciously or unconsciously make their pronunciation approach to

Guangzhou Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Varieties of Chinese, Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) an ...

, the standard and authoritative dialect to Cantonese.

Cuisine

Notable people

Chén Jìtáng (陳濟棠)

References

External links

Official Website (Chinese)
{{authority control Cities in Guangxi Prefecture-level divisions of Guangxi Gulf of Tonkin