Hengsha (横沙岛,

Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the Districts of Shanghai, central districts of the Shanghai, City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as ...

: ''Waan So Tau'') is a low-lying alluvial island at the mouth of the Yangtze River in eastern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Together with the islands of Chongming and

Changxing () is a county of the prefecture-level city of Huzhou, in the northwest of Zhejiang province, China. Situated on the southwest shore of Lake Tai, it borders the provinces of Jiangsu to the north and Anhui to the west. It has a total area of an ...

, it forms Chongming District, the northernmost area of the

provincial Provincial may refer to: Government & Administration * Provincial capitals, an administrative sub-national capital of a country * Provincial city (disambiguation) * Provincial minister (disambiguation) * Provincial Secretary, a position in Can ...

-level municipality of Shanghai. Its population was 33,400 in 2008.

Name

''Heng'' is the horizontal, rightward stroke used in writing Chinese characters, similar in form to a

dash The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

. It is also used to mean "horizontal". It was applied to the island for the way it formerly stood athwart the mouth of the Yangtze, although time has now given it a round or heart-like shape and moved it in line with

History

Hengsha first emerged from the Yangtze in 1858. It began to be reclaimed for agricultural purposes in 1886 or 1890. Hengsha Township was established in 1909. Between its formation and 1958, the island gradually expanded towards the northwest while receding to the southeast: together, these actions caused the island to "migrate" about in the direction of Changxing. Under the

Republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

, the island carried on an active trade in grains via junk. Hengsha was originally part of Chuansha County, which later merged into Pudong. In 1958, the island was placed under Baoshan County, as its ferries operated from the harbor of Wusong at the mouth of the Huangpu. The island's wandering was ended by the erection of a seawall and stabilization of the banks around the island. The next year, it saw a major influx of population, including boat people who were organized into fishing brigades. During the Down to the Countryside Movement, many of the '' sent-down youth'' from Shanghai travelled no further than Hengsha, where they assisted in reclamation, urban defense, and

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

efforts. Hengsha was named among the first set of national tourist resorts ( t , s , p ''guójiā jí lǚyóu dùjià cūn'') by Beijing in October 1992. Initial plans called for the construction of a casino, although that was cancelled. In March 2002, the Shanghai Municipal Government approved plans to develop Hengsha as an international conference center and

forest park A forest park is a park whose main theme is its forest of trees. Forest parks are found both in the mountains and in the urban environment. Examples Chile * Forest Park, Santiago China * Gongqing Forest Park, Shanghai * Mufushan National Fo ...

, with tree coverage over at least 70% of the island. In 2005, it was moved from the jurisdiction of Baoshan District to Chongming County.

Geography

Hengsha is located in the channel of the Yangtze River flowing south of Chongming and north of the

districts A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

of Baoshan and Pudong immediately before its entrance into the

East China Sea The East China Sea is an arm of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. It covers an area of roughly . The sea’s northern extension between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula is the Yellow Sea, separated b ...

. Hengsha is the southeasternmost of the three islands of Chongming County, separated from Changxing to its west by the Hengsha Xiaogang Channel."Hengsha" in the ''Encyclopedia of Shanghai'', pp. 126 f.
Shanghai Scientific & Technical Publishers (Shanghai), 2010. Hosted by the Municipality of Shanghai. Hengsha is fairly round, with a height north-to-south of about and a breadth east-to-west of about .Office of Shanghai Chronicles. '"Dǎo, Shā"'', "Islands and Shoals" Shanghai Municipal Government (Shanghai), 2015. Accessed 12 Jan 2015. Constantly expanding, it covered about in 2010"Chongming County" in the ''Encyclopedia of Shanghai'', pp. 50 ff.
and had an average elevation of .

Land reclamation

Hengsha is the site of significant land reclamation works, with dykes constructed to its southeast in order to drain and fill approximately 100 square kilometers during the lifetime of the project.

Economy

The orchards of Hengsha are the center for Shanghai's production of citrus fruits. Other crops include rice, cotton, and rape. Both freshwater and marine fishing are practiced, principally landing two kinds of anchovy. The island is also being developed for ecotourism and high-end resorts, including an international conference center, communities of low-density

luxury villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became sm ...

s, and yacht clubs. One of Shanghai's commercial

cemeteries A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

is located on the island and the Hengsha Xiaogang Channel is also used for sea burials and the dispersing of ashes.

Government

Hengsha is administered as a single township, also named Hengsha. This is divided into 24 villages, including one fishing village. The main settlement is at Xinmin (, ''Xīnmín Jūwěihuì''). The others are: Xingsheng (, ''Xìngshèng Cūn''),
Zengchan (, ''Zēngchǎn Cūn''),
Gongping (, ''Gōngpíng Cūn''),
Hongqi (, ''Hóngqí Cūn''),
Dongbang (, ''Dōngbāng Cūn''),
Xinbeicun (, ''Xīnběicūn''),
Xinglong (, ''Xīnglóng Cūn''),
Fengle (, ''Fēnglè cūn''),
Xinchun (, ''Xīnchūn Cūn''),
Dongxing (, ''Dōngxìng Cūn''),
Xinlian (, ''Xīnlián Cūn''),
Huifeng (, ''Huìfēng Cūn''),
Xinyong (, ''Xīnyǒng Cūn''),
Minjian (, ''Mínjiàn Cūn''),
Minsheng (, ''Mínshēng Cūn''),
Yongfa (, ''Yǒngfā Cūn''),
Fumin (, ''Fùmín Cūn''),
Yongsheng (, ''Yǒngshèng Cūn''),
Donghai (, ''Dōnghǎi Cūn''),
Minxing (, ''Mínxīng Cūn''),
Jianghai (, ''Jiānghǎi Cūn''),
Minyong (, ''Mínyǒng Cūn''),
Mindong (, ''Míndōng Cūn''), and
Haihong (, ''Hǎihóng Cūn'').

Infrastructure

Unlike Chongming and

, Hengsha remains connected to the rest of Shanghai only by

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

service. There are plans for a small airport to be constructed.

In popular culture

Hengsha is one of the main settings of the 2011 video game '' Deus Ex: Human Revolution'', in which it is depicted as a major metropolitan area.

References

External links

* Chongming County'
official English-language website
* at

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{{China topics, state=autocollapse Islands of Shanghai Chongming District Township-level divisions of Shanghai