Meaning of the name
"River Awakening", derived from the names of two ancient prefectures, Jiangning and Suzhou. In ancient times a different character was used for the syllable su, which meant "Fish and Rice":

Geographical location
Jiangsu, situated at the center of the eastern coast, is between 116018' and 121057' east longitude and between 30045' and 35020' north latitude. It stretches on both banks of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and boards the Yellow Sea in the east. Its coastline extends some 1,000 km. The province links Anhui and Shandong provinces in the northwest and borders with Shanghai and Zhejiang Province in the southeast. It covers a total area of 102,600 square km, making up 1.06 percent of China's total territory.

Capital: Nanjing

Major Cities: Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou, Xuzhou, Yangzhou, Lianyungang, Changzhou, Nantong, Zhenjiang

Neighboring Areas: Zhejiang, Anhui, Shandong provinces and Shanghai municipality

Attractions in Jiangsu

Population:
73.81 million (2002)

Population growth rate: 2.18¡ë in 2002, down 0.23¡ë from the previous year.

Ethnicity
In addition to the ethnic Han group, Jiangsu is also home to 55 minority ethnic groups with a total population of 210,000, accounting for 0.29 percent of the provincial total.

Rate of unemployment
By the end of 2002, the registered rate of unemployment in cities was 4.2.

History
Jiangsu was originally part of the ancient state of Wu, and was long considered to be outside of China.

Jiangsu finally became a separate province in 1667, taking its name from the two most important prefectures it contained.

During the 1980s, Jiangsu surpassed all other provinces in China in rural non-agricultural economic development. Collective township and village enterprises account for most of the activity, with local government officials deeply involved in their support and management. The local government became involved when the central government's reform policies led to fiscal decentralization, giving local officials a strong incentive to generate their own revenues. The brains behind these enterprises come from two sources: urban technicians who retire to their ancestral villages, and urban people who retained ties to the communities where they were sent down as youth during the Cultural Revolution.

Today Jiangsu is one of the wealthiest and most densely populated provinces in China. In 1987 its industrial output value accounted for 11.5 percent of China's total, making it first in the country.

Folklore
Chinese say that Jiangsu natives are smart, good at business, good at saving money, and good at cooking. But they are not as straightforward as northern Chinese, neither are they as generous. This province produces more scientists, successful capitalists, and businesspeople than other Chinese provinces.

Literacy
A multi-level educational system involving pre-school education, elementary education, education for the disabled, vocational education, higher education and adult education is now in place in Jiangsu. There are 94 full-time higher learning institutions with 700,200 students. Technical secondary schools have a total number of 451,400 students.

The province also has 460,340 middle school students and 635,230 elementary school students. About 99.58 percent of the children at school age can receive primary schooling.

Topography
The province is located in the fertile land of the Yangtze River delta. Most of its land is flat, dotted with the Taihu and Hongze Lake; two of the five largest freshwater lakes in China. On its southwestern and northern borders are hilly lands.

Land
Of the province's territory, the plains cover a total area of 70,600 square km; water covers a total of 17,300 square km; cultivated land amounts to some 5 million hectares.

Rivers: the Yangtze River ( 6,300 kilometers, third longest river in the world next to the Nile and Amazon ), abandoned waterway of the Yellow River; lower reaches of Huaihe River, and Guanhe River

Lakes: Taihu Lake, Hongze Lake, Gaoyou Lake, Luoma Lake and Yangcheng Lake

Climate
Located in a transit belt from the subtropics to a warm temperate zone, Jiangsu features a distinctive monsoon climate. Generally speaking, the area south of the Huaihe River and the Northern Jiangsu General Irrigation Canal enjoys a subtropical humid monsoon climate while the area northward enjoys a warm temperate humid monsoon climate. It is warm with moderate rainfalls and clear-cut seasons in the province. The annual average temperature is between 13-16 centigrade. The annual rainfall is between 724-1,210 mm. The rainfall in summer accounts for 50 percent of the annual rainfall.

Average Temperature: -2C to 4C in January, 26C to 29C in July

Annual Average Rainfall: 800 - 1,200 mm; high in the southeast and low in the northwest; 60 percent happened in the northeast in summer

Water resources
Jiangsu boasts a network of rivers and lakes. The Yangtze River runs over 400 km through the province from west to east while the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal runs 690 km from north to south. There is the Qinhuai River in its southwest; Northern Jiangsu General Irrigation Canal, Xinmu River and Nantong-Yanzhou Canal in the northern part. The province also boasts more than 290 lakes including the Taihu Lake and Hongze Lake.

Jiangsu has abundant aquatic resources. The area of fish farms in the east coast reaches 154,000 square km. The noted four farms including Lusi and Haizhou Bay teem with yellow croaker, cutlass fish, butterfish, shrimps, crabs, shellfish and algae. The province is also the major producer of freshwater crabs and eel fry. The inland waters within the province cover a total area of 1.73 million hectares. The aquatic farms cover a total area of some 533,333 hectares, cultivating 140 types of fish.

Mineral resources
Jiangsu has a wide distribution of mineral resources with a rich variety. The mineral products discovered so far total 120. Major energy resources include coal, petroleum and natural gas. Non-metallic resources include sulphur, phosphorus, sodium salt, crystal, cyanite, sapphire, diamond, kaolin, limestone, quartz sand, marble and pottery clay. The metallic resources include copper, lead, zinc, silver, gold, strontium and manganese. The province is particularly rich in clay, building materials, chemical raw materials, metallurgic auxiliary materials, minerals for special uses and non-ferrous metals.

Tourism resources:
Jiangsu has a long history of a relatively developed economy and culture. Rich in landscape gardens, scenic attractions and historical sites, it is noted for having the largest number of historical cities in the country. Such cities include Nanjing, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Changshu, Xuzhou and Huai'an. There are 20 scenic spots, 23 forest parks, 6 holiday resorts and 416 cultural heritage sites under the state and provincial-level protection. Nine classical gardens in Suzhou were put on the world cultural heritage site list by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Environment and current issues
By the end of 2002, environmental monitoring stations at various levels totaled 111. There were 23 nature reserves, covering a total area of 669,000 hectares. A sum of 1.1 billion yuan had been invested in 850 projects tackling pollution. Suzhou and 6 other cities won the honorary title of "National Model Environment Protection City". All cities and counties are piloting the construction of ecological zones at a national level.

The province has generally fulfilled the state requirement of controlling pollutant discharge from 12 outlets. Nanjing, Lianyungang, Suzhou and Nantong have reached the state standards for surface water quality and air quality. Improvements have been achieved in the water quality of Taihu Lake and Huaihe River, with the water now being mid-level eutrophic from heavy eutrophic a few years ago.

Transportation
Railway
Jiangsu is linked to more than 40 large and medium-sized cities in China through the railway network. The new Asia-Europe Continental Bridge which starts in Lianyungang in the east and ends at Rotterdam, Netherlands in the west, has undertaken 95 percent of the transit transportation business since it opened to traffic at the end of 1992.

Highway
The highways in the province, totaling 60,141 km, include express highways and first-class and second-class highways. A total of 1,702 km express highways have opened to traffic. Nanjing is the largest highway hub with lines radiating province wide and linking over 100 cities and counties in neighboring provinces. Fourteen national roads run through the province, including two north-south trunk roads: one from Tongjiang in northeast China to Sanya in Hainan, and the other from Beijing to Fuzhou; and two east-west trunk roads, one from Lianyungang to Huoerguosi in Xinjiang, and the other from Shanghai to Chengdu in Sichuan.

Airway
Seven cities in the province have airports which provide services to 67 domestic and international air routes.

Telecommunications
Telephones
By the end of 2002, the province's telephone switching system capacity had expanded to 21.74 million lines. The number of fixed telephone subscribers had reached 16.6 million. The number of mobile phone subscribers increased by 4.66 million in 2002. The number of Internet users reached 3.929 million.

TV and radio stations
The province boasts a total of 14 radio stations, 21 medium and long-wave broadcasting transmission and relay stations, and 14 TV stations. The coverage for the population is 99.6 percent for radio and 99.5 percent for TV. Jiangsu Cable TV programs can reach Russia in the north, Australia in the south, Japan in the east and Eastern Europe and North Africa in the west through the Asia-II satellite. Voice of Jinling is a radio program devoted mainly to serving Taiwan compatriots.