Economy

In 2014, Hebei's GDP was 2.942 trillion yuan (US$479 billion),[16] ranked 6th in the PRC. GDP per capita reached 40,124 Renminbi. As of 2011, the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors of industry contributed 203.46 billion, 877.74 billion, and 537.66 billion RMB respectively. The registered urban unemployment rate was 3.96%.[citation needed]A corner in downtown Zhangjiakou.40% of Hebei's labor force works in the agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry sectors, with the majority of production from these industries going to Beijing and Tianjin[17] Hebei's main agricultural products are cereal crops including wheat, maize, millet, and sorghum. Cash crops like cotton, peanut, soybeans and sesame are also produced.Kailuan, with a history of over 100 years, is one of China's first modern coal mines, and remains a major mine with an annual production of over 20 million metric tonnes. Much of the North China Oilfield is found in Hebei, and there are also major iron mines at Handan and Qian'an. Iron, as well as steel, manufacturing are the largest industries in Hebei, and are likely to remain so as these industries consolidate and Hebei continues to grow as a manufacturing and transportation center for the region.[17]Hebei's industries include textiles, coal, steel, iron, engineering, chemical production, petroleum, power, ceramics and food.

Politics

The politics of Hebei is structured in a dual party-government system like all other governing institutions in mainland China.The Governor of Hebei is the highest-ranking official in the People's Government of Hebei. However, in the province's dual party-government governing system, the Governor has less power than the Hebei Communist Party of China Provincial Committee Secretary (CPC Party Chief).

Geography

Most of central and southern Hebei lies within the North China Plain. The western part of Hebei rises into the Taihang Mountains (Taihang Shan), while the Yan Mountains (Yan Shan) run through northern Hebei, beyond which lie the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. The Great Wall of China cuts through northern Hebei from east to west as well, briefly entering the border of Beijing Municipality, and terminates at the seacoast of Shanhaiguan in northeastern Hebei. The highest peak is Mount Xiaowutai in northwestern Hebei, with an altitude of 2882 m.Hebei borders Bohai Sea on the east. The Hai He watershed covers most of the province's central and southern parts, and the Luan He watershed covers the northeast. Not counting the numerous reservoirs to be found in Hebei's hills and mountains, the largest lake in Hebei is Baiyangdian, located mostly in Anxin County.Hebei has a continental monsoon climate, with cold, dry winters, and hot, humid summers. Temperatures average −16 to −3 °C (3 to 27 °F) in January and 20 to 27 °C (68 to 81 °F) in July; the annual precipitation ranges from 400 to 800 mm (16 to 31 in), concentrated heavily in summer.

Demographics

The population is mostly Han Chinese. 55 ethnic minorities are present in Hebei, representing 4.27% of the total population. The most important are Manchu (2.1 million people), Hui people (600000 people) and Mongol (180000 people).Excludes members of the People's Liberation Army in active service.Source: Department of Population, Social, Science and Technology Statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics of China and Department of Economic Development of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of China, eds. Tabulation on Nationalities of 2000 Population Census of China. 2 vols. Beijing: Nationalities Publishing House (民族出版社), 2003. (ISBN 7-105-05425-5)In 2004, the birth rate was 11.98 births per 1,000 people, while the death rate was 6.19 deaths per 1,000 people. In 2000 the sex ratio at birth was 118.46 males to 100 females.The predominant religions in Hebei are Chinese folk religions, Taoist traditions and Chinese Buddhism. According to surveys conducted in 2007 and 2009, 5.52% of the population believes and is involved in ancestor veneration, while 3.05% of the population identifies as Christian,[30] mostly of the Catholic Church. Local worship of deities in the region began to organise into "benevolent churches" as a reaction to Catholicism in the Qing dynasty.The reports didn't give figures for other types of religion; 90.61% of the population may be either irreligious or involved in worship of nature deities, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and folk religious sects. Zailiism is a folk religious sect that originated in Hebei. There is a presence of Tibetan Buddhist schools in the province.Hebei has the largest Catholic population in China, with 1 million members according to the local government.[32] and 1.5 million Catholics according to the Catholic Church.[33] The province is considered as the center of Catholicism in China. The town of Donglu, where an apparition of the Virgin Mary was reported to have occurred in 1900, is reportedly "one of the strongholds of the unofficial Catholic Church in China".[34]A large number of Catholics in Hebei remain loyal to the Pope and reject the authority of the Catholic Patriotic Church. Four of Hebei's underground bishops have been imprisoned in recent years: Bishop Francis An Shuxin of Donglu since 1996; Bishop James Su Zhimin since October 1997; and Bishops Han Dingxiang of Yongnian who died in prison in 2007 and Julius Jia Zhiguo of Zhengding since late 1999.[33][35] In 2003 there were 350.000 Protestants and 580.000 Muslims according to government statistics.[36][37] According to a survey, as of 2010 Muslims constitute 0.82% of the population of Hebei.

History

Plains in Hebei were the home of Peking man, a group of Homo erectus that lived in the area around 200,000 to 700,000 years ago. Neolithic findings at the prehistoric Beifudi site date back to 7000 and 8000 BC.[7]During the Spring and Autumn period (722 BC – 476 BC), Hebei was under the rule of the states of Yan (燕) in the north and Jin (晉) in the south. Also during this period, a nomadic people known as Dí (狄) invaded the plains of northern China and established Zhongshan (中山) in central Hebei. During the Warring States period (403 BC–221 BC), Jin was partitioned, and much of its territory within Hebei went to Zhao (趙).The Qin Dynasty unified China in 221 BC. The Han Dynasty (206 BC – AD 220) ruled the area under two provinces (zhou), Youzhou Province (幽州) in the north and Jizhou Province (冀州 Jì Zhōu) in the south. At the end of the Han Dynasty, most of Hebei came under the control of warlords Gongsun Zan in the north and Yuan Shao further south; Yuan Shao emerged victorious of the two, but he was soon defeated by rival Cao Cao (based further south, in modern-day Henan) in the Battle of Guandu in 200. Hebei then came under the rule of the Kingdom of Wei (one of the Three Kingdoms), established by the descendants of Cao Cao.1500-year-old Iron Lion of CangzhouAfter the invasions of northern nomadic peoples at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the chaos of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern Dynasties ensued. Hebei, firmly in North China and right at the northern frontier, changed hands many times, being controlled at various points in history by the Later Zhao, Former Yan, Former Qin, and Later Yan. The Northern Wei reunified northern China in 440, but split in half in 534, with Hebei coming under the eastern half (first the Eastern Wei; then the Northern Qi), which had its capital at Ye (邺), near modern Linzhang, Hebei. The Sui Dynasty again unified China in 589.During the Tang Dynasty (618–907), the area was formally designated "Hebei" (north of the Yellow River) for the first time. During the earlier part of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Hebei was fragmented among several regimes, though it was eventually unified by Li Cunxu, who established the Later Tang (923–936). The next dynasty, the Later Jin under Shi Jingtang, posthumously known as Emperor Gaozu of Later Jin, ceded much of modern-day northern Hebei to the Khitan Liao Dynasty in the north; this territory, called the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, became a major weakness in the Chinese defense against the Khitans for the next century, since it lay within the Great Wall.During the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127), the sixteen ceded prefectures continued to be an area of hot contention between Song China and the Liao Dynasty. The Southern Song Dynasty that came after abandoned all of North China, including Hebei, to the Jurchen Jin Dynasty after the Jingkang Incident in 1127 of the Jin–Song wars.The Putuo Zongcheng Temple of Chengde, Hebei, built in 1771 during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.Saihanba National Park in Inner Mongolian plateau grassland border, north Chengde, HebeiThe Mongol Yuan Dynasty divided China into provinces but did not establish Hebei as a province. Rather, the area was directly administrated by the Secretariat (中書省) at capital Dadu. The Ming Dynasty ruled Hebei as "Beizhili" (北直隸, pinyin: Běizhílì), meaning "Northern Directly Ruled", because the area contained and was directly ruled by the imperial capital, Beijing; the "Northern" designation was used because there was a southern counterpart covering present-day Jiangsu and Anhui. When the Manchu Qing Dynasty came to power in 1644, they abolished the southern counterpart, and Hebei became known as "Zhili", or simply "Directly Ruled". During the Qing Dynasty, the northern borders of Zhili extended deep into what is now Inner Mongolia, and overlapped in jurisdiction with the leagues of Inner Mongolia.The Qing Dynasty collapsed in 1912 and was replaced by the Republic of China. Within a few years, China descended into civil war, with regional warlords vying for power. Since Zhili was so close to Peking (Beijing), the capital, it was the site of frequent wars, including the Zhiwan War, the First Zhifeng War and the Second Zhifeng War. With the success of the Northern Expedition, a successful campaign by the Kuomintang to end the rule of the warlords, the capital was moved from Peking (Beijing) to Nanking (Nanjing). As a result, the name of Zhili was changed to Hebei to reflect the fact that it had a standard provincial administration, and that the capital had been relocated elsewhere.The founding of the People's Republic of China saw several changes: the region around Chengde, previously part of Rehe Province (historically part of Manchuria), and the region around Zhangjiakou, previously part of Chahar Province (historically part of Inner Mongolia), were merged into Hebei, extending its borders northwards beyond the Great Wall. The capital was also moved from Baoding to the upstart city of Shijiazhuang, and, for a short period, to Tianjin.On July 28, 1976, Tangshan was struck by a powerful earthquake, the Tangshan earthquake, the deadliest of the 20th century with over 240,000 killed. A series of smaller earthquakes struck the city in the following decade.In 2005, Chinese archaeologists unearthed what is being called the Chinese equivalent of Italy's Pompeii. The find in question, located near Liumengchun Village (柳孟春村) in Cang County in east-central Hebei, is a buried settlement destroyed nearly 700 years ago by a major earthquake. Another possible explanation may be the four successive floods which hit the area around the time when the settlement met its sudden end. The settlement appears to have been a booming commercial center during the Song Dynasty.