Liyang is a city in the southwest of Jiangsu

Jiangsu

' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...

 province of Eastern China

East China

East China is a geographical and a loosely-defined cultural region that covers the eastern coastal area of China.Although an intangible and loosely defined concept, for administrative and governmental purposes, the region is defined by the government of the People's Republic of China to include...

. It is administratively a county-level city

County-level city

A county-level city is a county-level administrative division of mainland China. County-level cities are usually governed by prefecture-level divisions, but a few are governed directly by province-level divisions....

 under the administration of Changzhou

Changzhou

Changzhou is a prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It was previously known as Yanling, Lanling, Jinling, and Wujin. Located on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, Changzhou borders the provincial capital of Nanjing to the west, Zhenjiang to the...

 City, and in 1999 had a population of 781,430.

Administration

In August 1990, the PRC State Council approved the upgrade of Liyang from a county to a county-level city under the administration of the prefecture-level city

Prefecture-level city

A prefectural level city , prefectural city or prefectural level municipality is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China, ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. Prefectural level cities form the second level of the administrative...

 of Changzhou.

Geography

Liyang is between 31°0 1'–31° 04' N, 119° 08'–119° 36' E and has a total area of 1535.87 square kilometres (593 sq mi).

Liyang resides at the boundary of Jiangsu and Anhui

Anhui

Anhui is a province in the People's Republic of China. Located in eastern China across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, it borders Jiangsu to the east, Zhejiang to the southeast, Jiangxi to the south, Hubei to the southwest, Henan to the northwest, and Shandong for a tiny...

 provinces and is part of the Yangtze River Delta

Yangtze River Delta

The Yangtze River Delta, Yangtze Delta or YRD, also called Yangzi, or Chang Jiang Delta, Rive Chang Delta Tai Lake Region or the Golden Triangle of the Yangtze, generally comprises the triangular-shaped territory of Wu-speaking Shanghai, southern Jiangsu province and northern Zhejiang province of...

.

Language

The dialect spoken by most people in Liyang is a Northern

Taihu Wu dialects

Taihu Wu dialects , or Northern Wu dialects , are a group of Wu dialects spoken over much of southern part of Jiangsu province, including Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, the southern part of Nantong, Jingjiang and Danyang; the municipality of Shanghai; and the northern part of Zhejiang province, including...

 Wu dialect closely related to that of Changzhou. Min Chinese is also spoken by a minority there.
The dialect has many characteristics.For example,the dialect is very simple and guileless wih strong generility and symbolic.If people in Liyang say something like "dessert" in pronunciation,they refer to the lunch or afternoon.In addition,the dialect is vivid and accurate,which makes the behavior and pesonalities more meticulous.Parable and exaggeration are always used in it that makes listener experience what people said more deeper.Another funny thing is that many people in other regions say the dialect in Liyang is simalar to Japanese.

External links

• Liyang City English guide (Jiangsu.NET)