Preface

Administrative Division and Natural Resources

Administrative Division

Changzhou has jurisdiction over two county-level cities and five districts. There are 32 towns, 66neighborhood committees (community committees), and 448 villagers＊ committees under the jurisdiction of Jintan city and Liyang city; and Wujin district, Xinbei district, Tianning district, Zhonglou district, Qishuyan district totally administer 16 subdistrict offices, 32 towns, 223 neighborhood committees (community committees) and 644 villagers＊ committees.

# Location

Changzhou, located in the southeast of Jiangsu province and the central section of Shanghai-Nanjing railway, belongs to the coastal economic open zone. Between north latitude 31～09＊ to 32～04＊ and east longitude 119～08＊ to 120～12＊, bordering the great Yangtze River in the north, Anhui province in the south and facing Taihu Lake and Wuxi city in the east and neighboring Nanjing city, Zhenjiang city in the west.

Changzhou enjoys convenient transportation of water, land and air. Shanghai-Nanjing Railway, Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway, Nanjing-Hangzhou Expressway, No.312 State Highway, Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal all go through the city properly; Besides, it owns the crisscross network of waters, connecting Yangtze River and leading to the sea. Changzhou Port of the Yangtze River is listed as the state category-1 port; and Changzhou civil airport has scheduled flights to over 20 large and medium size domestic cities, such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Dalian, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Haikou and Xi＊an, etc.

.Topography

The relief type of Changzhou is combined with plain and hills and polders. It has Tianmu Mountain ranges in the south, Maoshan Mountain ranges in the west, Tailing edge of Ningzhen Mountain in the north, vast plain and polder in the central section and east. The terrain is relatively higher in southwest and relatively lower in the northeast with a difference of 1.5‵2 meters.

# Area

The total area of Changzhou is 4375sq.km, including 2410sq.km of plain and polder land, 731sq.km of water area, 1234sq.km of hilly area. The urban area covers 1864sq.km.

# Rivers

The rivers cross the city in a crisscross pattern, and lakes spread all over the city like the stars in the sky and scattered like the pieces on a chessboard.

There are three famous natural lakes, such as Taohu Lake (Changdang Lake), Gehu Lake, Taihu Lake and two artificial reservoirs, namely, Shahe (Tianmu), Daxi reservoirs. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal goes through the city properly with many branches interlinked with rivers, which forms the water system network of canal, rivers interlinked and three lakes connected.

# Climate

Changzhou lies in middle latitude and near the sea, which belongs to monsoon of subtropical moist marine climate zone. The annual average temperature is 16.3⊥; It enjoys plenty rainfall and abundant sunshine with total annual precipitation of 1068.9 millimeters and 2035.1 hours for annual sunshine respectively. A fairly long frostless period averages 237 days a year. The dominating wind direction around the year is southeast and there are four distinctively-divided seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter.