Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (广西壮族自治区)
Zi-Jiang scenic spots in Guilin (桂林资江景区; ),
Guilin Liu San Jie Landscape Park (桂林刘三姐景观园; ),
Bose Sea Ranch Lake Scenic Area (百色澄碧湖风景区 ; ),
Poly Yangshuo Resort Longtan Park (阳朔聚龙潭度假公园; ),
Fangchenggang Shiwandashan National Forest Park (防城港十万大山国家森林公园; ),
Yizhou White Dragon Park (宜州市白龙公园; ),
Yizhou Liu San Jie House (宜州市刘三姐故居; ),
Yizhou Gulong scenic river rafting (宜州市古龙河漂流景区 ; ),
Window of the North Sea marine (北海海洋之窗; ),
Xishan Scenic Area Guiping (桂平西山风景名胜区; ),
Baise Leye doline group大石围Area (百色乐业大石围天坑群景区; ),
And南宁嘉City Area (南宁嘉和城景区; ),
Jingxi psychic Grand Canyon Scenic Spot (靖西通灵大峡谷景区; ),
Yu Guilin, since the Park Art Garden (桂林愚自乐园艺术园; ),
Old East Falls Scenic Guilin (桂林古东瀑布景区; ),
Wuzhou City veranda - Dragon Mother Temple Scenic Spot (梧州市骑楼城-龙母庙景区; ),
Former Residence of Liu Feng Qinzhou Area (钦州刘冯故居景区; ),
Qinzhou三娘湾tourist areas (钦州三娘湾旅游区; ),
Scenic city of Guilin Jingjiang Wang (桂林靖江王城景区; ),
Kwan'am scenic spots in Guilin (桂林冠岩景区; ),
Mineyama deer Industrial Area (兴业鹿峰山风景区; ),
Liuzhou Longtan Scenic Spot (柳州龙潭景区; ),
Baise Uprising Memorial Hall (百色起义纪念馆; ),
Dah Sing Tak-day cross-border Falls Area (大新德天跨国瀑布景区; ),
Hezhou Guposhan tourist areas (贺州姑婆山旅游区; ),
Jingxi County Gulong Mountain scenic canyon group of eco-tourism (靖西县古龙山峡谷群生态旅游景区; ),
Liu Hou Park (柳侯公园; ),
Guilin Lipu Yinzi Yan scenic tourist resort (桂林市荔浦银子岩风景旅游度假区; ),
Xing'an灵渠Area (兴安灵渠景区; ),
Scenic Lijiang (漓江景区; ),
Seven Star scenic (七星景区; ),
Xiangshan Area (formerly the Xiangshan Park, Riverside Park) (象山景区(原象山公园、滨江公园); ),
Nanning nine Bay Area Hot Springs (南宁九曲湾温泉景区; ),
Nanning青秀山Scenic Area (南宁青秀山风景旅游区; ),
Scenic Liuzhou Yufeng Li (柳州立鱼峰风景区; ),
Lo Tik Area (芦笛景区; ),
Beihai Silver Beach tourist area (北海银滩旅游区; ),
North Sea Underwater World (北海海底世界; ),
Guilin Shangri-la tourism area (桂林世外桃源旅游区; ), Halfway along the road between Guilin and Yangshuo Set in beautiful scenery, this ethnic theme park tries to introduce visitors to the wide range of local nationalities and their cultures. A short boat trip will take you around the butterfly lake. On the way, various performances are staged on the shore of the lake, demonstrating different aspects of the culture. The boat will drop you off at the 'village' where you can see displays of local crafts including weaving, embroidery, buffalo horn carving and calligraphy. These crafts are produced on site and you may watch them working.
Two rivers and four lakes scenic spots in Guilin (桂林市两江四湖景区; ),
Yulin eastern Rongxian, "three" tourist attractions (玉林容县"三名"旅游景区; ),
Qinzhou eight寨沟tourist attractions (钦州八寨沟旅游景区; ),
Guilin Merryland Leisure World (桂林乐满地休闲世界; ), Tel: +86 773 6229898 (Fax: +86 773 6229906), located about 1 hours drive north of Guilin offers two attractions: A Theme Park and a Golf Course. Beautiful golf course with 27 holes. A bit on the expensive side but well worth the money;
Liuzhou Dole Rock Scenic Area (柳州都乐岩风景区; ),
Guilin Longsheng Hot Spring Holiday Resort (桂林龙胜温泉旅游度假区; ),
Yaoshan scenic spots in Guilin (桂林尧山景区; ), Several km east of the city center. Bus routes 10 and 98 run nearby but still leave a lengthy walk to the park Tel: +86 773 5864592 This is a large country park which encompasses the highest peak in the area. Foot paths run to the summit, however the chair lift provides an effortless way to attain the top and enjoy the scenery. There are extensive views of the surrounding area from the sumit. There is a toboggan run down part of the mountain. To access this, dismount the chairlift at the station half way down the mountain. A taxi to and from the park will cost about ¥30 each way.
Yinzi Yan Guilin Tourist Resort (桂林银子岩旅游度假区; ),
Guilin Li River Folk Custom Park (桂林漓江民俗风情园; ),
Guilin Feng Fish Rock Holiday Resort (桂林丰鱼岩旅游度假区; ),
Guilin Yangshuo Cultural Heritage Landscape Park (桂林阳朔文化古迹山水园; ),
Nanning Yiling Cave Scenic Spot Wuming (南宁武鸣伊岭岩风景区; ),
Nanning-Liang Feng Jiang National Forest Park (南宁良凤江国家森林公园; ),
Important crops in Guangxi include rice, maize, sweet potatoes, and wheat. Cash crops include sugar cane, peanuts, tobacco, and kenaf.
85% of the world's star anise is grown in Guangxi. It is a major ingredient in the antiviral Tamiflu.
Guangxi has more tin, manganese, and indium deposits than any other province of China.
In recent years Guangxi's economy has languished behind that of its wealthy neighbour and twin, the province of Guangdong.
Guangxi's 2008 nominal GDP was about 717.2 billion yuan (US$103 billion) and ranked seventeenth in China. Its per capita GDP was 14,966 yuan (US$2,155).
Seventy one Taiwanese ventures started up in Guangxi in 2007, with contracts bringing in up to US$149 million of investment, while gross exports surpassed US$1 billion. There are a total of 1182 Taiwan ventures in Guangxi, and by the end of 2006, they have brought a total of US$4.27 billion of investment into the province. During the first half of 2007, 43 projects worthy of RMB2.6 billion (US$342 million) have already been contracted between Guangxi and Taiwan investors. Cooperation between Guangxi and Taiwan companies mainly relates to manufacturing, high-tech electronic industries, agriculture, energy resources, and tourism.
Guangxi Power Grid has invested 180 million yuan in 2007 in projects to bring power to areas that still lacked access to electricity. The areas affected include Nanning, Hechi, Bose and Guigang. Around 125,000 people have gained access to electricity. The money has been used to build or alter 738 10-kilovolt distribution units with a total length of wire reaching 1,831.8 kilometers.
Due to lack of investment in construction in the power grid net in rural areas, more than 400 villages in Guangxi Province were not included in the projects. Around 500,000 cannot participate in the policy known as "The Same Grid, the Same Price." Guangxi Power Grid will invest 4.6 billion yuan in improving the power grid during the 11th Five Year Plan.
Guangxi Power Grid has invested 2.5 billion yuan in building electric power system in the first half of 2007. Of the total investment, 2.3 billion yuan has been put into the project of the main power grid. So far, four new transformer substations in Guangxi are in various stages of completion. Wenfu substation went into operation in the city of Hechi on January 2007, and since then it has become a major hub of the electrical power system of the surrounding three counties. When Cangwu substation was completed, it doubled the local transformer capacity. In June 2007, the new substation in Chongzuo passed its operation tests. And in the same month, Qiulong commenced production too. This shall support the power supply system of Qiulong City, as well as the northern part of Guangxi province, and facilitate the nationwide project to transmit power from west to east.
In 2008, the central government has approved China's first international and regional economic cooperation zone in Guangxi in late February. The construction of the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone began in 2006. With the approval, the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone will be formally incorporated into national development strategies.
The Beibu Gulf Economic Zone covers six coastal cities along the Beibu Gulf. It integrates the cities of Nanning, the region's capital, Beihai, Qinzhou, Fangchenggang, Chongzuo and Yulin. The state will adopt policies and measures to support mechanism innovation, rational industry layout and infrastructure construction in the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone.
Guangxi municipality has pledged a 100 billion yuan (US$ 14 billion) investment over the next five years for building and repairing 2,500 km railways to form a network hub in the area. Beibu Gulf Zone will serve as the logistics base, business base, processing and manufacturing base and information exchange center for China-ASEAN cooperation. Beibu Gulf Zone promises broad prospects for further development and its growth potential is rapidly released. But the shortage of talent and professionals in petrochemicals, iron and steel, electricity, finance, tourism, port planning, logistics and marine industries are bottlenecks.
The regional government is also working on speeding up key cooperation projects including transportation, the marine industry, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy development, cross-border tourism, and environmental protection. Beibu Gulf has already attracted a number of major projects such as Qinzhou oil refinery projects and Stora Enso, a Fortune 500 forest products company based in Finland. In January 2008 trade import and export in the Beibu Gulf zone exceeded US$1.3 billion, a record high.
In September 2007, China's Ministry of Commerce said that it has found 120 million tons of new bauxite reserves in Guangxi. The ministry said that the new reserves, which are located in Chongzhou in the southern region of Youjiang, has a very high-quality of bauxite, a raw material for making aluminum. Currently, the proven reserves of bauxite in Guangxi are about 1 billion tons, making the province one of the country's biggest bauxite sources.
The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group, particularly the Kwongsai people.
The region has a high concentration of Zhuang, over 14 million, one of the major minority ethnicities of China. Over 90% of Zhuang in China live in Guangxi, especially in the central and western regions. There is also a significant number of both Dong and Miao minority peoples. Other ethnic groups include: Yao, Hui, Yi (Lolo), Shui, and Gin (Vietnamese). There is a minor Christian population.
"Guangxi" and neighbouring Guangdong literally mean "Guang West" and "Guang East". Together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called the "Two Guangs" (两广, Liǎng Guǎng). Its culture and language are reflected in this. Though now associated with the Zhuang ethnic minority, Guangxi's culture traditionally has had a close connection with the Cantonese. Cantonese culture and language followed the Xi River valley from Guangdong and is still predominate in the eastern half of Guangxi today. Outside of this area there is a huge variety of ethnicities and language groups represented.
Guangxi is known for its ethno-linguistic diversity. In the capital of Nanning, for example, four dialect-languages are spoken locally: Southwestern Mandarin, Cantonese, Pinghua, and Zhuang.
Part of the region officially became part of China in 214 BC, when the army of the Qin Dynasty claimed most of southern China. The name "Guangxi" can be traced to the Song Dynasty, which administered the area as a circuit called the Guangnanxi Circuit (literally "Guang-South West Circuit"). During the late Mongol Yuan Dynasty the name was revived again to name a province in the region, but it was shortened to "Guangxi", or "Guang-West". For the next six centuries, Guangxi was a province of China, until its conversion into an autonomous region by the People's Republic of China because of its large minority population.
During the late Qing Dynasty, Guangxi was the site of the Jintian Uprising (金田起义), which occurred in what is now Guiping county in eastern Guangxi on January 11, 1851. On March 23, 1885, Zhennan Pass (now Youyi Pass) on the border with Vietnam was also the site of the Battle of Bang Bo (镇南关战役) during the Sino-French War. During the battle, a French incursion was routed by Chinese forces under Feng Zicai (冯子才), an event that has been exalted by subsequent Chinese nationalism.
After the founding of the Republic of China, Guangxi served as the base for one of the most powerful warlord cliques of China: the Old Guangxi Clique. Led by Lu Jung-t'ing (陆荣廷) and others, the clique was able to take control of neighbouring Hunan and Guangdong provinces as well. The Old Guangxi Clique crumbled in the early 1920s, to be replaced by the New Guangxi Clique, led by Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi. Guangxi is also noted for the Baise Uprising (百色起义), a communist uprising led by Deng Xiaoping in 1929. Communist bases were set up, but eventually destroyed by Kuomintang forces.
In 1944, near the end of World War II, Japan invaded Guangxi as part of Operation Ichigo (also known as the Henan-Hunan-Guangxi Campaign (豫湘桂战役), in an attempt to seize the Hunan-Guangxi railway line and open a land link to French Indochina. The operation succeeded and most major cities in Guangxi came under Japanese occupation.
Being in the far south, Guangxi was not taken by communist forces until after the People's Republic was formed; it joined in December 1949, two months after the People's Republic's foundation. In 1958, Guangxi was converted into an autonomous region for the Zhuang, by recommendation of Premier Zhou Enlai. This decision was made because the Zhuang were the biggest minority group in China, and were mostly concentrated in Guangxi.
For most of its history, Guangxi was landlocked. In 1952, a small section of Guangdong's coastline was given to Guangxi, giving it access to the sea. This was reversed in 1955, then restored in 1965.
While some development of heavy industry occurred in the province in the 1960s and 1970s, it remained largely a tourist destination and home of scenery which brought people from all over the world. Even the economic growth in China in the 1990s seemed to leave Guangxi behind. However in recent years there has been a growing amount of industrialization, and concentration on cash crops. Per capita GDP has begun rising more rapidly, as industries in Guangdong seek a way to locate production to lower wage areas.
Guangxi celebrated its 50th anniversary as an Autonomous Region on December 11th, 2008.
Located in the southern part of the country, Guangxi is bordered by Yunnan to the west, Guizhou to the north, Hunan to the northeast, and Guangdong to the southeast. It is also bounded by Vietnam in the southwest and the Gulf of Tonkin in the south.
Guangxi is a mountainous region. The Nanling Mountains are found in the northeast border, with the Yuecheng Mountains (越城岭) and Haiyang Mountains (海洋山) being its shorter branching ridges. Nearer to the center of the region are the Dayao Mountains (大瑶山) and the Daming Mountains (大明山). To the north there are the Duyao Mountains (都阳山) and the Fenghuang Mountains (凤凰山), while on the southeast border there are the Yunkai Mountains (云开大山). The highest point is Mount Mao'er (猫儿山) located in the Yuecheng Mountains, at 2141 m.
Many rivers cut valleys through the mountains. Most of these rivers form the tributary basin of the West River:
| Xijiang River system schematic (italics indicates rivers outside Guangxi) |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 贺江 He River | 西江 Xi River | |||
| 漓江 Lijiang River | 桂江 Gui River | |||
| 北盘江 Beipan River | 红水河 Hongshui River | 黔江 Qian River | 浔江 Xun River | |
| 南盘江 Nanpan River | ||||
| 融江 Rong River | 柳江 Liu River | |||
| 龙江 Long River | ||||
| 右江 You River | 邕江 Yong River | 郁江 Yu River | ||
| 左江 Zuo River | ||||
Guangxi has a short coastline on the Gulf of Tonkin. Important seaports include Beihai, Qinzhou and Fangchenggang.
Guangxi has a subtropical climate. Summers are generally long and hot. Average annual temperature is 17 to 23°C, while average annual precipitation is 1250 to 1750 mm.
Guangxi is divided into fourteen prefecture-level cities, fifty-six counties, thirty-four districts, twelve ethnic autonomous counties and seven county-level cities. The fourteen prefecture-level cities are:
| Map | # | Name | Hanzi | Hanyu Pinyin | Zhuang |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Baise | 百色市 | Bǎisè Shì | Baksaek Si | |
| 2 | Hechi | 河池市 | Héchí Shì | Hozciz Si | |
| 3 | Liuzhou | 柳州市 | Liǔzhōu Shì | Liujcouh Si | |
| 4 | Guilin | 桂林市 | Guìlín Shì | Gveilinz Si | |
| 5 | Hezhou | 贺州市 | Hézhōu Shì | Hohcouh Si | |
| 6 | Chongzuo | 崇左市 | Chóngzuǒ Shì | Cungzcoj Si | |
| 7 | Nanning | 南宁市 | Nánníng Shì | Namzningz Si | |
| 8 | Laibin | 来宾市 | Láibīn Shì | Leizbingz Si | |
| 9 | Guigang | 贵港市 | Guìgǎng Shì | Gveigangj Si | |
| 10 | Wuzhou | 梧州市 | Wúzhōu Shì | Ngouzcouh Si | |
| 11 | Fangchenggang | 防城港市 | Fángchénggǎng Shì | Fangzcwngzgangj Si | |
| 12 | Qinzhou | 钦州市 | Qīnzhōu Shì | Ginhcouh Si | |
| 13 | Beihai | 北海市 | Běihǎi Shì | Baekhaij Si | |
| 14 | Yulin | 玉林市 | Yùlín Shì | Yoglinz Si |
| Beijing Review |
Some of the text of this page has been sourced from Wikipedia's page about Guangxi and is licenced under the Creative Commons Share and Share Alike 3.0