Yiwu
Encyclopedia

Yiwu is a city of about 1.2 million people in central Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...

 Province near the central eastern coast of the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

. The city is famous for its small commodity trade and vibrant free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...

s and is a regional tourist destination. Although administratively Yiwu is 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 jurisdiction of Jinhua
Jinhua
Jinhua is a prefecture-level city in central Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It borders the provincial capital of Hangzhou to the northwest, Quzhou to the southwest, Lishui to the south, Taizhou to the east, and Shaoxing to the northeast....

, it is more well-known than Jinhua nationally and internationally.

History

Yiwu was founded in the Qin dynasty
Qin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...

, at or about 222 BC
222 BC
Year 222 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Marcellus and Calvus...

. Yiwu's long history flourished as early as the Neolithic Age. Yiwu first became a county in 222BC and was renamed Yiwu County in the year 624 AD. In May 1988, the former Yiwu County was upgraded to a county-level city. In 1995, Yiwu ranked the 47th among China's 100 most powerful counties/cities regarding comprehensive economic strength and in the same year listed as Zhejiang's sole city among the nation's experimental counties/cities of comprehensive reform. In 2001, the Yiwu overall economy ranked 19th of all counties (cities) of China.

Yiwu's early culture has given birth to many great figures in the fields of literature, art, military, education, and engineering. Among these were Chen Wangdao
Chen Wangdao
Chen Wangdao was a prominent Chinese scholar and educator. He was the first Chinese translator of the Communist Manifesto and served as president of Fudan University from 1949 to 1977....

, China's first translator of the Communist Manifesto; Wu Han
Wu Han (PRC)
Wu Han was one of the most important historians in the development of modern historical scholarship in China with his work in the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1940s he was a leading member of the Democratic League, a non-aligned Third Force. After 1949, he was Deputy-Mayor of Peking...

, historian and former deputy mayor of Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

; Zhu Zhixi, the meritorious engineer in harnessing the Yellow River
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...

, Zhu Danxi, one of the four distinguished doctors of the Jin and Yuan Dynasties ,and Zongze, a well-known general from the Song Dynasty
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

 who resisted aggression by the State of Jin, and as well as Wang Lee Hom, a very famous singer.

Geography

Yiwu is located 100 km south of the city of Hangzhou
Hangzhou
Hangzhou , formerly transliterated as Hangchow, is the capital and largest city of Zhejiang Province in Eastern China. Governed as a sub-provincial city, and as of 2010, its entire administrative division or prefecture had a registered population of 8.7 million people...

, the capital of Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...

 Province. The nearest city to Yiwu is Dongyang
Dongyang
Dongyang is a Chinese city of about 800,000 people in the middle of Zhejiang Province, about 200 kilometers south of Hangzhou. Dongyang lies in the central area of Zhejiang Province, covering an area of 1739 square kilometers...

. The area, as in most of the Province of Zhejiang, is in a mountainous region.

Administration

Yiwu is technically part of the greater Municipal region of Jinhua
Jinhua
Jinhua is a prefecture-level city in central Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It borders the provincial capital of Hangzhou to the northwest, Quzhou to the southwest, Lishui to the south, Taizhou to the east, and Shaoxing to the northeast....

, although it has a distinct urban core. On China's administrative strata it is a sub-prefecture level city. It has under its jurisdiction 15 towns and 8 villages, which covers 1102.8 square kilometers, 15 square kilometers of which are urban area of 650,000 people (2005 estimate). There has been talk of merging the Yiwu and Jinhua areas into a single municipal zone or economic entity, but this plan has yet to make its way into any formal discussion.

Economy

Yiwu is famous in China as a commodities
Commodity
In economics, a commodity is the generic term for any marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Economic commodities comprise goods and services....

 center. The Yiwu market
Yiwu market
Yiwu International Trade City, China Commodity City , is a large wholesale market of Yiwu, a city in the Zhejiang Province of the People's Republic of China....

 developed and managed by Zhejiang China Commodities City Group Co., Ltd. (Public, SHA:600415). Yiwu's China Small-Commodity Market has for 6 consecutive years topped China's 100 top open markets and was for successive years listed as "China's civilized open market". It has been named as the banner of China's market economy and with a large variety of quality but cheaper commodities, the market has become a shopping paradise for tourists. It especially witnessed a rise in Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 traders who have been visiting the city since 9/11. Apparently, since many entrepreneurs from the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

 found it more difficult to travel to America due to visa restrictions, they turned their attention to China. The Arab presence has fostered the rise mosques and Middle Eastern restaurants.

The GDP reached 52 billion yuan in 2009, an increase of 9% from 2008, and the per capita GDP reached 71,457 yuan (US$10,461). The per capita urban disposable income reached 30,841 yuan and rural pure income 12,899 yuan, increasing 7.4% and 8.5% respectively.

Its 4C-grade airport has opened over a dozen of air routes to such cities as Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...

, Shantou
Shantou
Shantou , historically known as Swatow or Suátao, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong province, People's Republic of China, with a total population of 5,391,028 as of 2010 and an administrative area of...

, Weifang
Weifang
Weifang is a prefecture-level city in central Shandong province, People's Republic of China. It borders Dongying to the northwest, Zibo to the west, Linyi to the southwest, Rizhao to the south, Qingdao to the east, and looks out to the Laizhou Bay to the north.-History:Weifang is a historical city...

 and Shenzhen
Shenzhen
Shenzhen is a major city in the south of Southern China's Guangdong Province, situated immediately north of Hong Kong. The area became China's first—and one of the most successful—Special Economic Zones...

. The Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...

-Jiangxi
Jiangxi
' is a southern province in the People's Republic of China. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south, it shares a border with Anhui to the north, Zhejiang to the northeast, Fujian to the east, Guangdong to the south, Hunan to the west, and Hubei to...

 Railway and Hangzhou
Hangzhou
Hangzhou , formerly transliterated as Hangchow, is the capital and largest city of Zhejiang Province in Eastern China. Governed as a sub-provincial city, and as of 2010, its entire administrative division or prefecture had a registered population of 8.7 million people...

-Jinhua
Jinhua
Jinhua is a prefecture-level city in central Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It borders the provincial capital of Hangzhou to the northwest, Quzhou to the southwest, Lishui to the south, Taizhou to the east, and Shaoxing to the northeast....

 Expressway pass through the city, making Yiwu an important local transportation hub. Express trains from Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

 South Railway Station take less than three hours.

"Yiwu, 300 kilometers away from Shanghai, is the largest market of petty commodity wholesales in the world where various foreign buyers go to place orders." Such a depiction comes from Chinese Figures Astonishing the World, a special report co-delivered by the United Nations,the World Bank and Morgan Stanley. In that special report, Yiwu is the only enlisted county economy. And in the choice of "the 2004 Most Favorite Chinese Cities of Domestic and Foreign Public in 2004", Yiwu ranked the first among all county-level cities.

Cultural and social

Yiwu contains an Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

 quality stadium. Many events associated with trade take place in Yiwu City. Yiwu also has a sizable Chinese Muslim and Korean population, mostly working in the import and export businesses, as well as a very small Jewish population also in those businesses. It also has a large Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 Church. Yiwu is also known as the "sock town" as it produces over three billion pairs of socks for Wal-Mart, Pringles and Disney annually. Yiwu is also known as China's number one producer of fashion jewelry.

The Guyue Bridge
Guyue Bridge
The Guyue Bridge is an ancient Chinese arch bridge located in Yiwu, Jinhua, Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China."Gu" means ancient, "yue" the moon, so "Guyue Bridge" literally means the bridge of the ancient moon.-Introduction:...

, a stone arch bridge built in 1213, is one the few existing bridges of that era.

International School

EtonHouse Yiwu International School
http://yiwu.etonhouse.com.cn/

University

Yiwu Industrial & Commercial College

External links

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