Datong

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Datong shi
大同市
Datong
Datong (China)
Datong
Datong
Coordinates 40 ° 5 '  N , 113 ° 17'  E Coordinates: 40 ° 5 '  N , 113 ° 17'  E
Basic data
Country People's Republic of China

province

Shanxi
ISO 3166-2 CN-SX
height 1200 m
surface 14,176 km²
Residents 3,406,400 (2015)
density 240.3  Ew. / km²
Website www.dt.gov.cn
politics
mayor Wǔ, Hóngwén
(武宏文)
Political party CCP
Datong city location
Datong city location

Datong ( Chinese  大同 , Pinyin Dàtóng , W.-G. Ta-t'ung , abbrev .: 大 , Dà / 同 , Tóng ) is a Chinese prefecture-level city in the Shanxi province with about 1.36 million inhabitants (2010) in urban city center and a further 1.96 million inhabitants in the surrounding districts. Datong is located about 300 kilometers west of Beijing at around 1200 m above sea level. NN. and has an area of ​​14,176 square kilometers.

The city was founded as Píngchéng ( 平城  - " City of Peace") during the Han Dynasty and was the capital for almost a hundred years (398 to 494) during the Northern Wei Dynasty . In 1048 the city was renamed Datong fu ( 大同 府  - "Great Unity") after a local stream ( 大同 川 ), a name it has kept to this day. The city has the poetic nickname Fènghuáng Chéng ( 鳳凰 城  /  凤凰 城  - "Phoenix city") in Chinese .

geography

Datong administers a territory of 14,176 square kilometers, which is about 9.1% of the territory of Shanxi Province. It is located in the northwest of Shanxi Province and is bordered by Zhangjiakou and Baoding to the east, Shuozhou and Xinzhou to the south and west, and Ulanqab to the north ; the Great Wall of China also runs there . Its north-south extension is 189 kilometers, its west-east extension 137 kilometers.

Datong is located in the northeast of the Loess Plateau , near the Yan Mountains . It has a diverse relief, but is mostly hilly to mountainous and is predominantly at heights of 1000 to 1500 meters above sea level. It is surrounded by two mountain ranges, which include an elongated basin in the middle with the actual urban area. In the northwest of Datong are the foothills of the Yinshan Mountains and the Lüliang Mountains . The main mountain sticks in the Datong area are Shuang Shan , Erlang Shan , Yunmen Shan , Cailiang Shan, and Leigong Shan . In the south of Datong are the foothills of the Taihang Mountains with the mountain sticks Heng Shan , Taibai Shan and Liuleng Shan . This is also where Datong's highest peak, Huangyang Jian, lies at 2,420 meters . Datong's lowest point is in Huata Village in Lingqiu County at 558 meters above sea level. d. Sea level.

The Sanggan-He flows through the territory of Datong from west to east . It divides forms between the Qifeng Shan , Hongtao Shan and Heng Shan a 5127 km² large basin in which the urban area is located. The smaller settlements in the Datong area are located in other basins, each covering about 500 km².

The Sanggan River, the Huliu River , the Nanyang River, and the Yu River belong to the catchment area of ​​the Yongding River . Its catchment area in Datong has an area of ​​10,831 km². The Tang River belongs to the catchment area of ​​the Qing River , whose catchment area in Datong occupies 2071 km². These rivers carry around 734 million cubic meters of water annually. Datong has 111 reservoirs, the six largest of which can collectively store 679 million cubic meters of water, the others hold back a further 106 million cubic meters.

Datong belongs to the temperate continental climate zone with an average annual temperature of 6.6 ° C. The temperature differences between day and night as well as winter and summer are great. An average of 400 mm of precipitation falls per year, but with large variations between the years.

population

As of 2015, Datong had a total population of 3,406,400 people. In Datong, in addition to Han Chinese, there are members of 18 ethnic minorities , of which only the Hui Chinese and the Manchu make up more than 1,000 people.

Administrative structure

Datong was declared a city in May 1949. Since then, the territory and its administrative structure have been adjusted several times. In 1993 Datong was merged with Yanbei District , giving the territory the shape it had as of 2019. As of 2019, Datong is divided into four boroughs and six counties at the district level. These are:

The Chengqu , Kuang and Nanjiao districts were dissolved as part of a reorganization in 2018.

As of 2019, there were 46 street districts , 33 large municipalities and 66 municipalities at the municipal level . These are in turn divided into 332 communities and 1967 villages .

The old town project

Traditional hutongs of the old town
Datong 2005 satellite image

For mainly tourist and commercial reasons, urban redevelopment of the city center in the style of the Ming dynasty was carried out from 2008. The 6 billion euro project should appeal particularly to the financially strong Chinese middle class. According to Western press reports, the reconstruction is only an approximate. 40,000 poorer residents of the old town will be relocated, and luxury apartments will be built in the new old center, which was delimited by a monumental city wall built between 2009 and 2012. The gentrification with its historicizing backdrop architecture is already well advanced. According to the documentary “The Chinese Mayor”, however, this old town project has failed: After five years in office, Mayor Geng Yanbo, who promoted this project, was unexpectedly transferred as mayor to another city 300 km away. According to the statements in the above film, he left behind debts amounting to several billion dollars and a large number of half-finished projects that his successor no longer continued. The problem of this project was already described in 2012 in the magazine Bauwelt .

Culture

Shānmén 山門  /  山门 building
(Shanhua Monastery, 2013)
Loess landscape near Hunyuan

Datong is the location of a UNESCO World Heritage Site , 27 monuments of the People's Republic of China and more than 300 sites that enjoy the protection of another level of administration. The Yungang Grottoes from the time of the Northern Wei Dynasty are about 16 km from the city center and represent the largest cave temple complex in China that is preserved today. The Buddhist Huayan Temple is one of the most important of its kind in China, both in terms of its size and its roof decoration. The Shanhua Temple is the best preserved temple at the time of the Liao and Jin Dynasty . Datong's Nine Dragon Wall is the oldest, largest and best preserved dragon wall in the country. The Hanging Monastery just outside the city is the only existing monastery today in which Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism are practiced together at the same time, and it is the only building in China that is built into a rock in this way. The wild goose pagoda is one of the few pagodas in China that was built as part of the city wall. In Ying , which belongs to Datong, there is the Sakyamuni Pagoda of the Buddha Palace Temple , which is mostly known as the "Wooden Pagoda" .

Transport and infrastructure

Datong is about 330 kilometers from China's capital Beijing , 290 kilometers from Shanxi's provincial capital Taiyuan and 300 kilometers from Hohhot , the capital of Inner Mongolia . Due to this location, Datong is one of China's transport hubs. Six highways that are in operation, construction or planning meet in Datong, including the Beijing-Datong and the Eren Hot-Guangzhou . As of 2015, Datong had a road network with a length of 12,546 kilometers, of which 550 kilometers were motorways.

Datong is on the Beijing-Baotou Railway and the Beijing-Yuanping Railway . In addition, the Datong – Puzhou railway , a north-south connection, and the Datong-Qinhuangdao railway , a west-east connection , begin in Datong . Both rail lines are of great importance, especially in coal transport, are electrified and are among the most heavily used freight routes in the country; Last but not least, they are nicknamed the coal river . The Datong freight station is the second largest of its kind in China in terms of tonnes loaded, the Datong – Puzhou railway, the Datong – Qinhuangdao railway . In 2015, the construction of the Datong-Zhangjiakou high-speed line began, which should reduce the travel time to Beijing to 2 hours. The Datong-Xi'an high-speed line is also under construction at the end of 2018.

The Datong Yungang Airport provides connections to several major cities in China such as Shanghai , Beijing or Guangzhou .

South of Datong at 39 ° 56 '34 "  N , 113 ° 14' 52"  E is a long-wave transmitter of the Chinese Navy. The specialty of the system is that four of the transmitter masts used look like an upside down "V".

Web links

Commons : Datong  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Shanxi (China): Prefecture Level, Cities & Counties - Population Statistics, Maps, Graphics, Weather and Web Information. Retrieved May 9, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j 大同 概况.大同市 人民政府 办公室 (People's Government of Datong City), accessed April 5, 2019 (Chinese).
  3. ↑ Director: Zhou Hao, CHN 2014, 86 ', DCP, OmeU; The Chinese Mayor at DOKUARTS
  4. ↑ The Chinese Mayor. In: srf.ch. May 2, 2018, accessed February 17, 2019 .
  5. ^ Max Woodworth: New City Center. Uncritical reconstruction . In: Bauwelt . No. 7 , 2012 ( bauwelt.de [accessed on February 17, 2019]).
  6. ↑ a b c 区 位 交通.大同市 人民政府 办公室 (Datong City People's Government), accessed April 5, 2019 (Chinese).
  7. ^ Zhenhua Chen, Kingsley E. Haynes: Chinese Railways in the Era of High-Speed. Emerald Group, Bingley 2015, ISBN 978-1-78441-985-1 .