The Heihe–Tengchong Line (), also called the Aihui-Tengchong Line (and internationally as the Hu line), is an imaginary line that divides the area of

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 ...

into two parts with contrasting population densities. It stretches from the city of

Heihe Heihe (; ; Russian: Хэйхэ) is a prefecture-level city of northern Heilongjiang province, China, located on the Russian border, on the south bank of the Amur (Heilong) River, across the river from Blagoveshchensk. At the 2020 census, 1,2 ...

in northeast to

Tengchong Tengchong () is a county-level city of Baoshan City, western Yunnan province, People's Republic of China. It is well known for its volcanic activity. The city is named after the town of Tengchong which serves as its political center, previously kn ...

in south, diagonally across China. The eastern "half", area shown in red in the map, is further subdivided into

north and south North and South may refer to: Literature * ''North and South'' (Gaskell novel), an 1854 novel by Elizabeth Gaskell * ''North and South'' (trilogy), a series of novels by John Jakes (1982–1987) ** ''North and South'' (Jakes novel), first novel ...

halves. As of 2015, 94% of China's population live east of the line, in an area that is 43% of China's total, whereas 57% of the Chinese territory is west of the line has but only 6% of the country's population.

History

Chinese population geographer

Hu Huanyong Hu Huanyong (, November 20, 1901 – April 30, 1998) was a Chinese demographer and the founder of China's population geography. He was born in Yixing, Jiangsu Province. He studied literature, history, and geography at Nanjing Higher Normal School ...

imagined the line in 1935 and called it a "geo-demographic demarcation line". As this line was proposed in 1935, the map of China at the time included

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

(whose independence China did not recognise until after

WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

) but excluded

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

(which was

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

at the time).

Demographic trend

1935 statistics

This imaginary line divides the territory of China as follows (going by 1935 statistics): * West of the line (including

): 64% of the area, but only 4% of the population (1935) * East of the line: 36% of the area, but 96% of the population (1935)

2002 and 2015 statistics

Despite a large scale urban migration mainly towards coasts but also trending

south South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

, 2002 and 2015 statistics remain nearly identical ''vis-à-vis'' the line: * West of the line: 57% of the area, but only 6% of the population (2002) * East of the line: 43% of the area, but 94% of the population (2002) The major change in area between 1935 to 2015 is attributed to the acknowledge of the independence of Mongolia by China after the

Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...

. The minor change in total population percent from 1935 to 2015 is attributed to

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...

migration to urban areas west of the line, as well as

one-child policy The term one-child policy () refers to a population planning initiative in China implemented between 1980 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child. That initiative was part of a much bro ...

restrictions on the majority, with exceptions for largely-minority groups west of the line. However, during the 2000-2015 period, population in the west of the line indeed grew faster than the east, but the growth wasn't sufficient to budge the rounded percentages. Most of this growth was contained in the cities of

Ürümqi Ürümqi ( ; also spelled Ürümchi or without umlauts), formerly known as Dihua (also spelled Tihwa), is the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the far northwest of the People's Republic of China. Ürümqi developed its ...

Lanzhou Lanzhou (, ; ) is the capital and largest city of Gansu Province in Northwest China. Located on the banks of the Yellow River, it is a key regional transportation hub, connecting areas further west by rail to the eastern half of the country. H ...

Ordos Ordos may refer to: Inner Mongolia *Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China ** Ordos Ejin Horo Airport * Ordos Loop of the Yellow River, a region of China **Ordos Plateau or "the Ordos", land enclosed by Ordos Loop *Ordos Desert, in Inner Mongolia *Ordos ...

, and

Yinchuan Yinchuan (, ; ) is the capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China, and was the capital of the Tangut-led Western Xia dynasty. It has an area of and a total population of 2,859,074 according to the 2020 Chinese census, and its built- ...

, although some tribal non-city areas also registered high growth.

Present statistics

References

External links

Great Circle Mapper

Numerical Simulation of Population Distribution in China

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heihe-Tengchong Line Cultural boundaries Geography of China