Jiangnan

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For a Taiwanese writer with pen name Jiang Nan, see Henry Liu.

Village in Jiangnan

Jiangnan or Jiang Nan (Chinese: 江南; pinyin: Jiāngnán; Wade-Giles: Chiang nan; sometimes spelled Kiang-nan) is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of the Yangtze Delta. This region is largely Wu-speaking.

The word Jiangnan is based on the Chinese name for the Yangtze, Cháng Jiāng, and nán meaning "south." The region encompasses the Shanghai Municipality, the southern part of Jiangsu Province, the southern part of Anhui Province, the northern part of Jiangxi Province, and the northern part of Zhejiang Province. The most important cities in the area are Shanghai, Nanjing, Ningbo, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou and Shaoxing.

Jiangnan has been a leading region of China for at least 1000 years, with its strong economy and human resources. Although only constituting 5% of area in China, it is responsible of more than 40% of the Chinese GDP. The intellectual life of Jiangnan has been highly distinguished throughout Chinese history and greatly influenced Chinese culture as a whole.

In the last 15 years, manufacturing, including automobiles (General Motors, Volkswagen), electronics and textiles industries, are concentrated in this area, taking advantage of cheap labor and convenient transportation. Jiangnan industries play an important role in China's export trade and produce much of the consumer goods used around the world.

[edit] History of Jiangnan

The earliest archaeological evidence were of the Liangzhu culture from around 2600-2000 BC, who created complex and beautiful jade artifacts. Their economy was based on rice cultivation, fishing and constructed houses on stilts over rivers or lakes. During the Zhou Dynasty, the Wu and Yue peoples inhabited the area and lived similarly to the Liangzhu, with heavy aquaculture and stilt houses, but became increasingly sinicized through contact with northern Chinese states. They adopted the Chinese writing system and created excellent bronze swords. The Chu state from the west (in Hubei) expanded into this area and defeated the Yue state. After Chu was conquered by Qin, China was unified. It was not until the fall of Western Jin during the early 4th century AD that northern Chinese moved to Jiangnan in significant numbers. The Yellow River valley was becoming barren due to flooding (lack of trees after intensive logging to create farmland).

Although Chinese civilization originated in the North China Plain around the Yellow River, natural climate change and continuous harassment from nomadic enemies damaged North China's agricultural productivity throughout the 1st millennium AD. Many people settled in South China, where the Jiangnan area's warm and wet climate were ideal for supporting agriculture and allowed highly sophisticated cities to arise. As early as the East Han period (circa 2nd century AD), Jiangnan areas became one of the more economically prominent areas of China. Other than rice, Jiangnan produced highly profitable trade products such as tea and silk. Convenient transportation - the Grand Canal to the north, the Yangtze River to the west, and seaports such as Yangzhou - contributed greatly to local trade and also trade between ancient China and other nations.

Several Chinese Dynasties were based in Jiangnan. During the Three Kingdoms period, Jianye (modern-day Nanjing) was the capital of the Kingdom of Wu. In the 3rd century, many northern Chinese moved here after Turkic nomads controlled the north. In the 12th century, nomadic tribes completely overran northern China and the exiled Song Dynasty government retreated south, establishing its capital at Hangzhou. The early Ming Dynasty was initially based at Nanjing before the second Ming Emperor, Yongle, moved the capital to Beijing. After the fall of the Chinese monarchy in 1911, the Republic of China had its national capital at Nanjing.

During the 19th century Taiping Rebellion, the rebel Taiping state occupied much of Jiangnan, which suffered much damage from the fighting.

The Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong made many visits to Jiang Nan (Chinese: 乾隆下江南; pinyin: Qiánlóng Xià Jiāngnán), which have been the popular subject of numerous Chinese operas and television dramas.