Yiyang

Yiyang 益阳市
Prefecture-level city
Yiyang Location of the city centre in Hunan
Coordinates: 28°35′N 112°20′E / 28.583°N 112.333°E / 28.583; 112.333
Country	People's Republic of China
Province	Hunan
Area
• Total	12,144 km2 (4,689 sq mi)
Population (2010 Census)
• Total	4,313,084
• Density	360/km2 (920/sq mi)
Time zone	China Standard (UTC+8)
Postal code	413000
Area code(s)	0737
Website	www.yiyang.gov.cn

Yiyang (simplified Chinese: 益阳; traditional Chinese: 益陽; pinyin: Yìyáng) is a prefecture-level city on the Zi River in Hunan province, People's Republic of China, straddling Lake Dongting and bordering Hubei to the north. According to the 2010 Census, Yiyang has a population of 4,313,084 inhabitants residing in an area of 12,144 km² (4,689 sq mi). The previous census was in 2000 when it was recorded there were 4,309,143 inhabitants.^[1]

History

Yiyang was founded in the Qin Dynasty. During the Taiping Rebellion its name was changed to DeSheng county.

Subdivisions

Yiyang administers two districts, one county-level city, and three counties. The information here presented uses the metric system and data from 2010 national census.

Agriculture

Yiyang has many hilly farmlands in its vicinity. The primary crop around Yiyang is rice, with tea, and bamboo is also grown.

Culture, People and Language

Huaguxi, the local Hunanese opera is very popular in Yiyang. The cuisine of Yiyang is very famous for its spicy food.

Yiyang has many famous people in the modern time of China. Ho Feng Shan is very famous in the history of Chinese foreign affairs since he had saved many Jewish families in Europe and China when he worked as a diplomat for China during World War II. Libo Zhou is a well-known writer in China, who was born in Yiyang.

The Language in Yiyang is "Yiyong-Wa" (Yiyang Dialect), which belongs to New Xiang dialect of the Chinese language. This dialect is very prevalent in all of Yiyang. But the western area of Anhua County of Yiyang has a slightly different accent, which is close to the Old Xiang accent of the Loudi District. Yiyang Dialect retains many ancient words and pronunciations and is influenced surprisingly little by Mandarin Chinese. Consequently, the Yiyang Dialect is very hard to understand for outsiders, although its speakers can communicate well with the speakers of other New Xiang dialects.

Religions

Historically, Buddhism and Taoism both played very important roles in the life of Yiyang people. Of course, both of these religions in modern times experienced a notable decline, as in many other places in China. Nowadays, however, some people claim that Buddhism and Christianity both have relatively many adherents in Yiyang, respectively 340,500 and 238,100 registered members. The source for these figures, however, needs to be cited.

Colleges and universities

• Hunan City University (湖南城市学院)

International relations

Twin towns — Sister cities

Yiyang is twinned with:

• Namhae County, South Korea (2006)
• Petah Tikva, Israel (2011)

See also

References

External links

• Hntj.gov.cn – provides a brief overview of the city

Coordinates: 28°35′N 112°20′E / 28.583°N 112.333°E / 28.583; 112.333