Sandu Shui Autonomous County (; Bouyei: ) is an autonomous county in the southeast of Guizhou province, China. It is under the administration of the Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, and the only Shui Autonomous County in China; 63% of Shui in China live in this county, which is the heartland of the Shui people. Per a 2022 county government publication, Sandu has a population of 381,000, 97% of whom belong to ethnic minorities, and 67% of the total population are Shui. It is one of the poorest counties of Guizhou. Most of the county is forested and it is noted for its clean air.

Administrative divisions

Sandu administers the following 2 subdistricts and 6 towns: * Sanhe Subdistrict () * () * () * () * () * () * () * ()

Geography

Sandu County's urban center is located from Duyun, the administrative center of the Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, and from the provincial capital of

Guiyang Guiyang (; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), historically rendered as Kweiyang, is the capital of Guizhou province of the People's Republic of China. It is located in the center of the province, situated on the east of the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau, ...

. All of Sandu belongs to the watershed of the Liu River which flows into the Pearl River. The

Duliu River The Liu River (, pinyin: Liǔ Jiāng, literally: ''Willow River'') is a tributary within the Pearl River system in Guangxi, China. It is formed by the confluence of the Rong and Long rivers in Fengshan. It flows south through Liuzhou and then ...

has its source in Sandu and flows into the Liu River. The county is rather mountainous with

Karst Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resis ...

landscape resulting in large locale temperature and climate differences. Antimony is mined commercially in Sandu.

Climate

Demographics

As of 2021, Sandu Shui Autonomous County has a registered hukou population of 380,871, of which, 96,869 belong to urban areas, and the remaining 284,002 belong to rural areas, giving the autonomous county an urbanization rate of 25.43%. Per a 2022 county government publication, 67% of the autonomous county's population is ethnically Shui, another 30% belong to other recognized ethnic minorities, and just 3% of the population is ethnically

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 v ...

. The average annual disposable income for urban residents as of 2021 totaled 35,874

renminbi The renminbi (; symbol: ¥; ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China and one of the world's most traded currencies, ranking as the fifth most traded currency in the world as of April 2022. ...

(RMB), a 9% increase from the previous year, and the second highest among county-level divisions in the Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture.

Transport

Sandu is served by the Guiyang–Guangzhou high-speed railway, with a travel time of 50 minutes to

. It is also connected by G76 Xiamen–Chengdu Expressway and several provincial expressways.

References

County-level divisions of Guizhou Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture Shui autonomous counties {{Guizhou-geo-stub