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Liaoning
Shenyang Dalian

Geographic location
  
Liaoning Province, situated in the south of Northeast China, lies at 1810 53' to 1250 46' east longitude, and 380 43' to 430 26' north latitude. Liaoning is in a temperate zone and adjoins Jilin and Hebei provinces and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and is bordered along the Yalu River by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Topography
The coastline of Liaoning Province is 2,178 kilometers long - nearly 12 percent of China's total. The hilly regions in east Liaoning are the main area for forest. Adjoining the long, narrow costal plains (usually called the Liaoxi Corridor) is the main road for Northeast China, linking with North China. Liaohe Plain in Central Liaoning, as a part of the Northeastern China Plain, has sedimentary deposits from the Liaohe River and other tributaries. The plain has abundant water and fertile soil, and is the main farming area and commodity grain base in Liaoning Province.

Climate

Liaoning Province has a continental monsoon climate with distinct seasonal variations. It has an annual rainfall of 714.9 mm, annual average temperature of 40C - 100C with a frost-free period of 140-200 days.

Water resources

There are 392 rivers of a total length of 160,000 kilometers with a drainage area of 145,000 sq. km in Liaoning Province. Liaohe River, one of the seven longest rivers in China, is 512 kilometers long and has a drainage area of 69,000 sq.km in the province. The average runoff of rivers in Liaoning has reached 32.5 billion cubic meters, or a 223 mm runoff depth. The province has a total water resource of 36.3 billion cubic meters.
Liaoning has plentiful fishing resources with its marine life area ranking second in China.
Minerals

Nearly 115 minerals have been found in Liaoning, and reserves of 64 minerals have been located. Its reserves of minerals such as iron, boron, magnesite, diamonds and talcum are some of the largest deposits in China.

Liaohe Oil Field is the third largest oil and natural gas field in China. Its reserves of oil and natural gas account for 15 percent and 10 percent of the country's total.

Biological resources

Liaoning Province has a total forestry area of 4.185 million hectares, with 28.7 percent forest cover. It also has a lot of fruit trees. It has the third largest total area of fruit in the defoliated zone and the second largest production in the area.

Tourist resources

Liaoning has over 11,300 cultural remains, including 19 national-level key protection units and 159 provincial-level key protection units. There are 7 state-class natural reserves and 7 provincial-class natural reserves.

Recently, the province put forward many cultural tourism items e.g. steam engine tours, recovery tours, ancient tours and business tours. Some of the folk festivals now attract the attention of both domestic and foreign visitors such as the Dalian Costume Festival.

Environmental protection

In 2003, among the 14 cities under the environment monitoring program, the air quality of seven cities met the standard of Grade 2, six cities met the standard of Grade 3, and only one city failed to meet Grade 3 standard. Among the 14 cities under the road noise monitoring program, the cities suffering severe noise pollution accounted for 7.1 percent, or down by 7.1 percentage points over the previous year.

By the end of 2003, there were 20 national eco-demonstration zones in the province. The 81 nature reserves cover a total area of 2.85 million hectares, accounting for 9.7 percent of the total provincial land area.

Total population: 42.1 million (2003)

The year 2003 saw 290,000 births, with a crude birth rate of 6.90 per thousand, and 245,000 deaths, with a crude death rate of 5.83 per thousand. The net growth of population in 2003 was 70,000.

Natural growth rate: 1.07 per thousand in 2003.

Life expectanc

The average life expectancy in the province has risen to 72.09 years. The life expectancy of males is 70.55 while females are 73.85 years old.

Ethnicity

Liaoning Province has 44 ethnic groups including Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui, Korean and Xibe. Minority population is 6.55 million, accounting for 16 percent of the province¡¯s total. There are 5 minorities with population exceeding 10,000: Manchu, Mongol, Hui, Korean and Xibe. In addition, the population of the Zhuang, Miao, Tujia, Dawo¡¯er and Yi ethnic groups is also comparatively large.

Education

At the end of 2003, there were 514,000 undergraduates enrolled in 69 general universities, including 164,000 new entrants. A total of 602,000 students studied in 456 senior high schools and 1.81 million students studied in 1,885 junior high schools. The attendance rate of the children of junior high school age was 99.6 percent, up by 0.3 percentage points over the previous year. Pupils enrolled in 11,339 primary schools numbered 2.89 million, including 433,000 new entrants. The attendance rate of primary school-aged children was 99.7 percent, up by 0.3 percentage points over the previous year. There were 8,429 students enrolled in special education schools.

Unemployment rate: 6.7 percent (2003)

Gross Domestic Product (GDP): 600.25 billion yuan in 2003.

Annual GDP growth rate: 11.5%.

GDP per capita: 14,258 yuan.

GDP ratio (1st, 2nd and tertiary industries): 10.4:47.5:42.1

Fiscal revenue: 89.92 billion yuan in 2003, up 19.8 percent over the previous year.

Industrial revenue and growth rate

In 2003, the industrial added value of Liaoning Province reached 251.04 billion yuan, up 11.6 percent.

Agricultural output value: 120 billion yuan in 2003, up 7.1 percent. The sown area of grain was 2.56 million hectares, down by 3.6 percent from the previous year.

Commerce

In 2003, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 233.08 billion yuan, up by 12.3 percent over the previous year. At the end of the year, there were 3,243 commodity trading markets in the province. The annual sales volume reached 173.6 billion yuan, down by 3 percent from the previous year.

Foreign trade

According to customs statistics, the total export and import volume of the area in 2003 was US$26.56 billion, up by 22.2 percent over the previous year. Exporting destinations of the province expanded to 177 countries and regions. The volume of exports to the United States was US$2.15 billion, up by 18.6 percent over the previous year; that to Hong Kong, US$610 million, up 40.6 percent; that to Japan, US$5.17 billion, up 10.4 percent; that to Korea, US$1.56 billion, up 23.3 percent; and that to Russia, US$170 million, up 27.9 percent.

Foreign capital utilization

In 2002, Liaoning approved a total of 2,328 foreign investment contracts involving a value of US$9.83 billion. The two figures were up by 9.2 percent and 32.2 percent respectively over the previous year. The actually utilized foreign capital amounted to US$5.71 billion, up by 34.2 percent.

Pillar industry

Petrochemicals, metallurgy, electronics and machinery are the four pillar industries of Liaoning Province.

The processing capacity of the petrochemical industry is 28 million tons. The main products include gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil, dissolvent oil, paraffin wax and a series of downstream products.

There are over 1,100 metallurgy enterprises, with various kinds of products such as bars, panels, strips, pipes and special steel and metal products.

The province has a highly developed electronics industry. The competitive advantage of six key products, that includes color TV kinescope, color TV, video tape recorder, telecommunication equipment, computer hardware and software, electronic equipment and integrated circuits (IC), took shape and brought up the development of other industries.

Over 1,000 machinery enterprises in Liaoning can produce nearly 20,000 products of 138 kinds. The province can produce heavy-duty mine machinery, petrochemical equipment, power transmission equipment and transformers, metalworking machine tools, ocean vessels and diesel locomotives.

People in poverty and aid programs

The annual per capita disposable income of urban households was 7,241 yuan in 2003, up by 11 percent over the previous year. The per capita net income of rural households was 2,934 yuan, a real increase of 6.7 percent. The Engel coefficients (which refers to the proportion of expenditures on food to the total consumption expenditures of households) were 39.4 percent for urban households and 43.2 percent for rural households.

There were 1.5 million poor in rural areas. A total of 1.596 million urban residents received the minimum income relief from the governments.

Railway

The province had over 3,939 kilometers of railway open to traffic at the end of 2003, up by 11 percent over the previous year. The electrified railways totaled 1,050 kilometers in length, rose by 79.8 percent.

Highway

Liaoning has a total highway network of 50,095 kilometers, including 1,637 kilometers of expressway.

Aviation

The province has 6 airports linking over 100 cities with both domestic and foreign countries, and regions, such as Japan, Russia, Republic of Korea (ROK) and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).



Shenyang

Shenyang, the largest city in Northeast China, is the political, economic, and cultural center of Liaoning Province. It is also an important industrial base and a famous historical city. As the host city of the 2006 International Horticultural Exposition and venue for the football (soccer) matches of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Shenyang will soon be the focus of world-wide attention.

Shenyang is located in the central part of Liaoning Province. Its climate is relatively dry most of the year with spikes in precipitation during the summer months due to the influence of monsoons. Temperatures vary as much as 10 degrees Celsius from daytime to night, and in winter they can drop below 0 degrees Celsius, so the smart traveler will plan to dress in layers.

Shenyang is a celebrated old city with more than 2,000 years of history which can be traced back to Warring States Period (476 BC - 221 BC). It is the birthplace of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and has many cultural relics which symbolize the prosperity and subsequent decline of China's last feudal dynasty... The most famous of these is the Shenyang Imperial Palace, which is of great historic and artistic significance and second only to the Forbidden City in Beijing in the extent of its preservation Fuling Tomb and Zhaoling Tomb are two other famous imperial structures of the Qing Dynasty.

Among the natural wonders of Shenyang the most impressive and unusual is Strange Slope (Guaipo), an 'anti-gravity' slope more than eighty meters (about 87.5 yards) long. Cars and bikes must accelerate to go down the hill but easily roll upward toward the top. Walkers experience a similar reversal in energy required to walk up and down.

As a significant city in Northeast China with abundant resources, Shenyang has made great efforts to provide good lodging, dining, transportation and recreation for tourists from all over the world. Altogether there are five five-star hotels in Shenyang, and the service and facilities of the other star-rated hotels in the city are all good enough to make you feel at home. In addition, you can find less expensive accommodations at local universities and hostels.

Famous traditional dishes and snacks in Shenyang will definitely make your mouth water. And there are plenty of pubs, KTVs (karaoke bars), cafes, and tea houses available to meet your food and entertainment needs A visit to Shenyang can be both entertaining and relaxing.




Dalian
Dalian, compared to ancient capital cities such as Beijing, Xi`an, Nanjing or Luoyang, is a young city with only a 100-year history. Situated at the tip of China's Liaodong Peninsular, it is a trading and financial center in northeastern Asia and has gained the name the 'Hong Kong of Northern China'.

The old name of Dalian was first used by an official in his memorial to Emperor Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (1644 -1911) referring to the present Dalian Gulf. In the early 20th century, the gulf area developed quickly and Dalian expanded into a city of significant size and importance.

After the Opium War in 1840, Dalian was plunged into warfare. At the end of the 1800s, Japanese and Russian invaders successively set their feet on the Chinese mainland here. In 1894, Japan invaded the Peninsular and in 1897 Russian troops occupied Lushun Port (Port Arthur) and imposed upon the Qing government an unfair contract, in which they ceded Lushun as a colony to Russia. Seven years later, Lushun was again transferred to Japanese rule, when the Russians lost in the Japanese-Russian War. From then on Dalian suffered from the colonial rule of Russia and Japan for decades. It was as recently as 1955 that the Chinese government took over sovereignty of Lushun and the hardest times in this city's history ended.

Both the Russian and Japanese colonists dreamed of establishing a city of their own on this land in those colonial periods. A group of Russian architects fascinated with French culture came to Dalian with their construction blueprint of Paris and built all sorts of elegant squares with artistic sculptures, lush lawns and western-style fountains. These formed the architectural basis of the present city - taking squares as the center and radiating outwards. Today, the stylish women troopers patrolling the squares have become a feature of the city.

Zhongshan District, originally the colonial residential area of the Russians and containing Nicholas Square, (Zhongshan Square) is a bustling downtown area of the city. The square (Zhongshan Square) has ten avenues radiating from it and is one of the most famous squares in the city. Renmin Square, originally called Stalin Square and marked out to be the administrative center of the Russian colonists, now houses the government's financial institutions in Euro-style buildings. The old tramlines built by Japanese colonists and left behind through the ages tell the history of the city.

The impression Dalian gives to the world is of a city of lawns, squares, fountains and gardens. This is all thanks to the former mayor of the city, Bo Xilai, who initiated a 'Green Storm' - a widespread environmental campaign which brought numerous green squares, forest parks and seaside scenic spots to the city. Of Dalian, people say it is 'A City Built in Gardens'.

There are two things that have earned the city a great reputation. One is Football and the other is Fashion. Given the name of 'Oriental Brazil', it hosts many Chinese football matches and has the most successful football teams in China. The enthusiastic fans in the football club of the four-star Wanda International Hotel tell everyone how much the Chinese like this game.

Another carnival event in the city is Dalian International Fashion Festival, during which thousands of dazzling celebrities, designers, pop stars and clothing merchants from both home and abroad get together to present an In-Fashion feast to the world. Consequently, Dalian stirs shopping lovers blood with all sorts of skyscraper shopping malls and markets.If you are lucky enough to come to the city around September, a sea of world-class fashion brands will delight you.

Running from downtown Dalian there is a 40-kilometer (25-mile) road known as Binhai Lu winding along the coastline, northeast to southwest. This coastal area is a paradise for beach vacationers. The famous scenic spots of Bangchuidao Scenic Area, Laohutan Scenic Area, Jinshitan Scenic Area and Xinghai Square are scattered around this region. In addition to the stunning cliffs and scenic parks, numerous places along the coastline are good for beach resort visitors and water sports lovers. Meanwhile, you can sample the authentic Dalian-style seafood in a fisherman's house at an incredibly low price.

Located to the southwest of Dalian is Lushun, the former military and strategic port colonized by Russia. Today it is a place with museums and historical sites for tourists to learn the history of the city. Bingyu Valley, 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Dalian is home to an astonishing array of rock formations amidst limpid waters, similar to those found in Guilin.

Surrounded by the Yellow Sea and inland Bohai Sea, Dalian has rich marine resources. The seafood in Dalian is equal to its southern counterpart in Guangzhong Province and there are numerous restaurants in the city providing a wide variety of top-quality seafood at very reasonable prices.

Numerous bathing places and beaches in the city are popular venues for Dalian's locals and visitors from all over the world to relax from everyday work and stress. Young people, like those in many other metropolitan cities in China are trend pursuers who spend their evenings in bars and pubs throughout the city



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