Jinchang () 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 centre of

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

province, People's Republic of China, bordering

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...

to the north.

Geography

Jinchang City is located in central Gansu province, west of the

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Standard Beijing Mandarin, Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system in the world at th ...

, north of the

Qilian Mountains The Qilian Mountains (, also romanized as Tsilien; Mongghul: Chileb), together with the Altyn-Tagh (Altun Shan) also known as Nan Shan (, literally "Southern Mountains"), as it is to the south of Hexi Corridor, is a northern outlier of the Kunlu ...

, and south of the Alashan Plateau. The southwest of the city borders

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

Province and the northwest borders

. The area is .

Transportation

Jinchang is served by the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway and the

Jinchang Jinchuan Airport Jinchang Jinchuan Airport is an airport serving the city of Jinchang in Gansu Province, China. The airport was built with an investment of 343 million yuan, and was opened on 29 August 2011. It is the sixth civil airport in Gansu and the fi ...

, opened in August 2011.

History

Jinchang has important archaeological sites from the Stone Age, a Western

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 ...

site, and sections of the

Great Wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand Li (unit), ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against Eurasian noma ...

from the Han and

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

dynasties.

Administration

Jinchang has 1

district 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 ...

and 1

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

with a total population of 464,050, half of which is urban.

Climate

Jinchang has a continental,

semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''BSk''), with plenty of sunshine and a prevailing northwesterly wind throughout much of the year. Both diurnal and seasonal temperature variations are rather large, and springtime winds are often strong.

Economy

The 2002 GDP was 4.5 billion RMB. The average urban income was 8,233 RMB while rural was 3,051 RMB. Agriculture and natural resource based industries are the key to Jinchang's economy. It is called China's 'Nickel Capital' () and has an abundance of other mineral resources including quartz, iron, manganese, copper, cobalt, zinc, gold, tungsten, limestone, etc. Here placed

Jinchuan Group Jinchuan Group Ltd. (Chinese character, Chinese: 金川集团) is a Chinese company based in Gansu. It produces the metals nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum, palladium, gold, silver and selenium. As of 2007 it has the capacity to produce 150,000 me ...

. The installation of a solar farm in the western part of Jinchang with a rated capacity of 1 GW and of a solar production facility with 300 MW capacity has been announced in May 2012. Vegetable oil is its primary agricultural product.

Tourism

Cultural sites such as the Han and Qing dynasty Great Walls are popular tourist sites. The relatively undeveloped natural environment is also a draw for tourists.

External links

*
Official site

References

{{authority control Prefecture-level divisions of Gansu