(;
Postal map spelling:
Szechwan and
Szechuan) is a
province (
shěng) in Southwestern
China with its capital in
Chengdu. The current name of the province, 四川 (Sìchuān), is an abbreviation of 四川路 (Sì Chuānlù), or "Four
circuits of rivers", which is itself abbreviated from 川峡四路 (Chuānxiá Sìlù), or "Four circuits of rivers and gorges", named after the division of the existing circuit into four during the
Northern Song Dynasty.
History
The province and its vicinity were the cradle of unique local civilizations, which can be dated back to at least the
fifteenth century BC (coinciding with the later years of
Shang Dynasty). Beginning from the
ninth century BC,
Shu (today
Chengdu) and
Ba (today
Chongqing City) emerged as cultural and administrative centers where two rival kingdoms were established.
Shu's existence was unknown until an archaeological discovery in 1986 at a small village named
Sanxingdui (三星堆 Sān Xīng Duī) in Guanghan
County. It is believed to be an ancient city of the Shu Kingdom, where excavations have yielded invaluable archaeological information.
Although the
Qin Dynasty destroyed the civilizations of Shu and Ba, their cultures were preserved and inherited by people in Sichuan until today. The Qin government accelerated the technological and agricultural advancements of Sichuan making it comparable to that of the
Huang He (Yellow River) Valley. The
Dujiangyan Irrigation System, built in the 3rd century BC under the inspection of
Li Bing, was the symbol of modernization of that period. Composed of a series of
dams, it redirected the flow of the
Min Jiang, a major
tributary of the
Yangtze River, to fields, relieving the damage of seasonal floods. The construction and various other projects greatly increased the harvest of the area which thus became the main source of provisions and men for Qin's unification of China.
Various ores were abundant. Adding to its significance, the area was also on the trade route from the Huang He Valley to foreign countries of the southwest, especially
India.
The area's military importance matches its commercial and agricultural significance. As a
basin surrounded by the
Himalayas to the west, the
Qinling Range to the north, and mountainous areas of
Yunnan to the south, Sichuan is prone to fog. Since the Yangtze flows through the basin and is thus upstream of eastern China, navies could be easily sailed downstream. Therefore Sichuan was the base for numerous amphibious military forces and also served as the refuge of Chinese governments throughout history. A few independent regimes were founded; the most famous was
Shu Han of the
Three Kingdoms. The
Jin Dynasty first conquered Shu Han on its path of unification. During the
Tang Dynasty, it was a battlefront against
Tibet.
thumb|A stone-carved pillar-gate, or que (闕), 6 m (20 ft) in total height, located at the tomb of Gao Yi in Ya'an, Sichuan, built during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD)
The
Southern Song Dynasty established coordinated defenses against the Mongolian
Yuan Dynasty in Sichuan and
Xiangyang. The line of defense was finally broken through after the first use of
firearms in history during the six-year
siege of Xiangyang, which ended in 1273.
During the
Ming Dynasty major architectural works were created in Sichuan.
Bao'en Temple is a well-preserved fifteenth century monastery complex built between 1440 and 1446 during
Emperor Yingzong's reign (1427-64) in the
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Dabei Hall enshrines a thousand-armed wooden image of
Guanyin and Huayan Hall is a repository with a revolving
sutra cabinet. The wall paintings, sculptures and other ornamental details are masterpieces of the
Ming period.
The
Qing general
Zhang Xianzhong, nicknamed
Yellow Tiger, conquered Sichuan Province in the middle of the 17th century. A
landslide dam on the
Dadu River caused by an earthquake gave way on 10 June 1786. The resulting flood killed 100,000 people.
In the 20th century, as
Beijing,
Shanghai,
Nanjing, and
Wuhan had all been lost to the Japanese during the
Second Sino-Japanese War, the capital of the
Republic of China had been temporary relocated to
Chongqing. The difficulty of accessing the region overland from the eastern China and the foggy climate hindering the accuracy of
Japanese bombing of the
Sichuan basin and the city of
Chongqing made the region the stronghold of
Chiang Kai-Shek's
Guomindang government during 1938-45.
As the
Second Sino-Japanese War was soon followed by the resumed
Chinese Civil War, and the cities of the east fell to the Communists one after another, the Guomindang government again tried to make Sichuan its stronghold on the mainland. Chiang Kai-Shek himself flew to Chongqing from Taiwan in November 1949 to lead the defense. But the same month Chongqing fell to the Communists, followed by Chengdu on 10 December. The Guomindang general
Wang Sheng wanted to stay behind with his troops to continue anticommunist guerilla war in Sichuan, but was recalled to Taiwan, many of his soldiers making their way there as well, via
Burma.
On Monday, 12 May 2008 at 2:28:01 PM local time,
an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9/8.0 hit just 79 km northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu. As of 14 May, the official Xinhua news agency reported: 14,463 people were dead, another 14,051 were missing, 25,788 were buried in the debris and 64,746 had been injured,
On 31 May, the death toll was updated to 68,467 in Sichuan with a further ~17,000 people missing, and 354,045 injured.
[ ]History of provincial borders
Sichuan's borders have remained relatively constant for the past 500 years. However, the western Tibetan regions were annexed to Sichuan in 1955. Since 1955 until 1997 it had been China's most populous province, hitting 100 million shortly after the 1982 Census figure of 99,730,000. This changed in 1997 when the city of Chongqing as well as the surrounding counties of
Fuling and
Wanxian were split off into the new
Chongqing Municipality. The new municipality was formed to spearhead China's effort to develop its western provinces, as well as to coordinate the resettlement of residents from the reservoir areas ofthe
Three Gorges Dam project. In 1997 when Sichuan split, the sum of the two parts was recorded to be 114,720,000 people, the only province ever to have reached 100 million people in China. Furthermore, as a
subnational entity, it has only been exceeded by the former
Russian SFSR of the Soviet Union and
Uttar Pradesh of India.
Subdivisions
Sichuan consists of eighteen
prefecture-level cities and three
autonomous prefectures:
Geography
right|thumb|Larix potaninii in autumn colour, Huluhai, SichuanThe area lies in the
Sichuan basin and is surrounded by the
Himalayas (喜玛拉雅山脉）to the west,
Qinling (秦岭) range to the north, and mountainous areas of
Yunnan to the south. The
Yangtze River flows through the basin and thus is upstream to areas of eastern China. The
Minjiang River in central Sichuan is a tributary of the upper Yangtze River, which it joins at Yibin. Plate tectonics formed the
Longmen Shan fault, which runs under the north-easterly mountain location of the
2008 earthquake.
The climate is highly variable. The
Sichuan Basin (including
Chengdu) in eastern half of the province experiences a subtropical
monsoon climate with long, warm to hot, humid summers and short, cool to cold, dry and cloudy winters, with China's lowest sunshine totals. The western areas have a mountainous climate characterized by very cold winters and mild summers, with plentiful sunshine. The southern part of the province, including Panzhihua, has a sunny, subtropical climate with very mild winters and hot summers.
Bordering provinces:
Hubei,
Tibet Autonomous Region,
Qinghai,
Gansu,
Shaanxi,
Guizhou and
Yunnan.
Politics
The politics of Sichuan is structured in a dual party-government system like all other governing institutions in
mainland China.
The
Governor of Sichuan is the highest ranking official in the People's Government of Sichuan. However, in the province's dual party-government governing system, the Governor has less power than the Sichuan
Communist Party of China Provincial Committee Secretary, colloquially termed the "Sichuan
CPC Party Chief".
Economy
Sichuan has been historically known as the "Province of Abundance". It is one of the major agricultural production bases of China. Grain, including rice and wheat, is the major product with output that ranked first in China in 1999. Commercial crops include citrus fruits, sugar canes, sweet potatoes, peaches and grapeseeds. Sichuan also had the largest output of pork among all the provinces and the second largest output of silkworm cocoons in China in 1999. Sichuan is rich in mineral resources. It has more than 132 kinds of proven underground mineral resources of which reserves of 11 kinds including vanadium, titanium, and lithium are the largest in China. The
Panxi region alone possesses 13.3% of the reserves of iron, 93% of titanium, 69% of vanadium, and 83% of the cobalt of the whole country.
Sichuan is one of the major industrial centers of China. In addition to heavy industries such as coal, energy, iron and steel, the province has also established a light industrial sector comprising building materials, wood processing, food and silk processing.
Chengdu and
Mianyang are the production centers for textiles and electronics products.
Deyang,
Panzhihua, and
Yibin are the production centers for machinery, metallurgical industries, and wine, respectively. Sichuan's wine production accounted for 21.9% of the country’s total production in 2000.
Great strides have been made in developing Sichuan into a modern hi-tech industrial base, by encouraging both domestic and foreign investments in electronics and information technology (such as software), machinery and metallurgy (including automobiles), hydropower, pharmaceutical, food and beverage industries.
The auto industry is an important and key sector of the machinery industry in Sichuan. Most of the auto manufacturing companies are located in Chengdu, Mianyang,
Nanchong, and
Luzhou.
Other important industries in Sichuan include
aerospace and defense (military) industries. A number of China's rockets (
Long March rockets) and
satellites were launched from the
Xichang Satellite Launch Center, located in the city of
Xichang.
Sichuan's beautiful landscapes and rich historical relics have also made the province a major center for tourism.
The
Three Gorges Dam, the largest
dam ever constructed, is being built on the
Yangtze River in nearby
Hubei province to control flooding in the Sichuan Basin, neighboring
Yunnan province, and downstream. The plan is hailed by some as China's efforts to shift towards alternative energy sources and to further develop its industrial and commercial bases, but others have criticised it for its potentially harmful effects, such as massive resettlement of residents in the reservoir areas, loss of archeological sites, and ecological damages.
Sichuan's nominal GDP for 2008 was 1.25 trillion yuan (US$180 billion), equivalent to 15,378 RMB (US$2,214) per capita. In 2008, the per capita net income of rural residents was 4,121 yuan (US$593), up 16.2% from 2007. The per capita
disposable income of the urbanites averaged 12,633 yuan (US$1,819), up 13.8% from 2007.
Foreign trade
According to the Sichuan Department of Commerce, the province's total foreign trade was US$22.04 billion in 2008, a year on year increase of 53.3 percent. Exports were US$13.1 billion, a year on year increase of 52.3 percent, while imports were US$8.93 billion, a year on year increase of 54.7 percent. These achievements were accomplished because of significant changes in China's foreign trade policy, acceleration of the yuan's appreciation, increase of commercial incentives and increase in production costs. The 18 cities and counties witnessed a steady rate of increase. Chengdu, Suining, Nanchong, Dazhou, Ya'an, Abazhou, and Liangshan all saw an increase of more than 40 percent while Leshan, Neijiang, Luzhou, Meishan, Ziyang, and Yibin saw an increase of more than 20 percent. Foreign trade in Zigong, Panzhihua, Guang'an, Bazhong and Ganzi remained constant.
Minimum wage
The Sichuan government raised the minimum wage in the province by 12.5 percent at the end of December 2007. The monthly minimum wage went up from 400 to 450 yuan, with a minimum of 4.9 yuan per hour for part-time work, effective Dec. 26 2007. The government also reduced the four-tier minimum wage structure to three. The top tier mandates a minimum of 650 yuan per month, or 7.1 yuan per hour. National law allows each province to set minimum wages independently, but with a floor of 450 yuan per month.
Economic and Technological Development Zones
- Chengdu Economic & Technological Development Zone
- Chengdu Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone
- Chengdu National Cross-Strait Technology Industry Development Park
- Mianyang New & Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone
Transportation
Expressways
On 3 November 2007, the Sichuan Transportation Bureau announced that the
Sui-Yu Expressway was completed after three years of construction. After completion of the Chongqing section of the road, the 36.64 kilometer long Expressway connected
Cheng-Nan Expressway and formed the shortest expressway from
Chengdu to
Chongqing. The new expressway is 50 kilometers shorter than the pre-existing road between Chengdu and Chongqing; thus journey time between the two cities was reduced by an hour, now taking two and a half hours. The Sui-Yu Expressway is a four lane overpass with a speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour. The total investment was 1.045 billion
Yuan.
Demographics
Tibetans as a main ethnic minority group in Sichuan.
The majority of the province's population is
Han Chinese, who are found scattered throughout the region. Significant minorities of
Tibetans,
Yi,
Qiang and
Naxi reside in the western portion. The
Eastern Lipo, included with either
Yi people or
Lisu people as well as the
A-Hmao also are among the ethnic groups of the provinces. Sichuan was China's most populous province before
Chongqing was carved out of it, making
Henan the current most populous. However, when including migrants,
Guangdong has a higher population than Henan.
It was the third most populous sub-national entity in the world, after
Uttar Pradesh,
India and the
Russian SFSR until 1991 when the
Soviet Union was dissolved. It is also one of the only four to ever reach 100 million people (Uttar Pradesh, Russian RSFSR,
Maharashtra, and Sichuan). It is
currently 6th.
Culture
The
Li Bai Memorial, located at his birthplace,
Zhongba Town of northern
Jiangyou County in Sichuan Province, is a museum in memory of Li Bai, a Chinese poet in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). It was prepared in 1962 on the occasion of 1,200th anniversary of his death, completed in 1981 and opened to the public in October 1982. The memorial is built in the style of the classic garden of the Tang Dynasty.
Languages
Most dialects of the
Chinese language spoken in Sichuan, including the
Chengdu dialect of the provincial capital, belong to the
southwestern subdivision of the
Mandarin group, and are therefore very similar to the dialects of neighboring
Yunnan and
Guizhou provinces as well as
Chongqing Municipality. Typical features shared by many southwestern Mandarin dialects include the merger of the
retroflex consonants into the
alveolar consonants , the merger of and , as well as the merger of into .
The prefectures of
Garzê and
Ngawa (Aba) in western Sichuan are populated predominantly by ethnic
Tibetans, who speak the
Kham and
Amdo dialects of
Tibetan. The
Qiang and other related ethnicities speak the
Qiangic languages, which are part of the
Tibeto-Burman languages. The
Yi of
Liangshan prefecture in southern Sichuan speak the
Yi language, which is more closely related to
Burmese; Yi is written using the
Yi script, a
syllabary standardized in 1974.
Cuisine
The Sichuanese are proud of their cuisine, known as one of the Four Great Traditions of
Chinese cuisine, which now is famous all over the world.
Sichuan cuisine is of "one dish, one shape, hundreds of dishes, hundreds of tastes", as the saying goes, to describe its acclaimed diversity. The most prominent traits of Sichuanese cuisine are described by four words: spicy, hot, fresh and fragrant. Two famous Sichuan chefs are
Chen Kenmin and his son
Chen Kenichi, who was Iron Chef Chinese on the television series "
Iron Chef".
Education
Colleges and universities
Collapse of schools during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake
During the
2008 Sichuan earthquake, a disproportionately high number of school structures collapsed, especially in rural areas of Sichuan, leading to
allegations of corruption and promises by the government for an official inquiry. However, it remains unclear whether the allegedly shoddy construction was unique to Sichuan, as opposed to a nation-wide practice that only became visible in Sichuan due to the earthquake.
Executive vice governor, Wei Hong, on 20 November 2008 confirmed that 19,065 identified schoolchildren died, and more than 90,000 were dead or missing after the earthquake. He stated that 200,000 homes had been rebuilt, and 685,000 were under reconstruction, but 1.94 million households were still without permanent shelter. 1,900 schools had been reconstructed, with initial relocation of 25 townships, including
Beichuan and
Wenchuan, two of the most devastated areas. The government spent $441 billion dollars on relief and reconstruction efforts.
Tourism
thumb|Chengdu, Sichuan/" class="wiki">Giant pandas eating bamboo in
Chengdu, Sichuan
UNESCO World Heritage Sites
Sports
Professional sports teams in Sichuan include:
Twin states
See also
Footnotes
Economic data'
