Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture

Enshi Prefecture
恩施州
Enshih
Autonomous prefecture
恩施土家族苗族自治州

Enrshiv bifzivkar befkar zifzifzoux(Tujia)

Entshil tutjadcul maolcul zibzhibzhoud(Miao)
Enshi Grand Canyon
Enshi Grand Canyon
Location of Enshi Prefecture in Hubei
Location of Enshi Prefecture in Hubei
Coordinates (Enshi Prefecture government): 30°16′19″N 109°29′17″E / 30.272°N 109.488°E / 30.272; 109.488
CountryPeople's Republic of China
ProvinceHubei
Prefecture seatEnshi City
Area
 • Total
24,061 km2 (9,290 sq mi)
Population
 (2010)
 • Total
3,290,294
 • Density136.75/km2 (354.18/sq mi)
GDP
 • TotalCN¥ 67.1 billion
US$ 10.8 billion
 • Per capitaCN¥ 20,191
US$ 3,242
Time zoneUTC+8 (China Standard)
Postal code
445000
Area code0718
ISO 3166 codeCN-HB-28
Websiteenshi.gov.cn
Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture
Chinese恩施土家族苗族自治州
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinĒnshī Tǔjiāzú Miáozú Zìzhìzhōu
Wade–GilesEn1-shih1 T'u3-chia1-tsu2 Miao2-tsu2 Tzu4-chih4-chou1
Former name
Chinese施南
PostalShihnan
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinShīnán
Wade–GilesShih1-nan2

Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture (Chinese: 恩施土家族苗族自治州; pinyin: Ēnshī Tǔjiāzú Miáozú Zìzhìzhōu) is located in the mountainous southwestern corner of Hubei province, People's Republic of China. It forms Hubei's southwestern "panhandle", bordering on Hunan in the south and Chongqing Municipality in the west and northwest. The Yangtze River crosses the prefecture's northeastern corner in Badong County.

Administrative divisions

There are two county-level cities:

There are six counties:

Map

History

Aerial view of Enshi Tusi Imperial City

Imperial

In 1735, Enshi came under direct rule after four hundred years of the tusi system; local chieftains were replaced by regular imperial officials.

Republican

The Republic of China's Hubei provincial government was relocated to Enshi during the 1937-45 resistance war (against Japanese invasion and occupation).[citation needed]

The Roman Catholic Church had the Diocese of Shinan on the territory of today's Enshi Prefecture.

People's Republic of China

Badong County was the site of the Deng Yujiao incident.

Geography

The Yangtze passes through Enshi Prefecture's Badong County.

Enshi Prefecture is located in the west end of Hubei Province, a mountainous belt separating Hubei's Jianghan Plain from the Sichuan Basin.

There are karst phenomena in the region. The most famous of them is perhaps the Tenglong Cave near Lichuan, a county-level city of Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture. A 290-meter deep karst sinkhole, located near the village of Luoquanyan (锣圈岩村) in Xuan'en County, is described as possessing its own unique ecosystem.

The Enshi Grand Canyon is also a well-known scenic area.

Demographics

The total area is 24,000 square kilometres (9,300 sq mi), and the population is 3,800,000. 52.6% of the population belong to the Tujia and Miao nationalities. Enshi is the only autonomous prefecture in Hubei province.

Enshi is also the only part of Hubei which has been included in the Chinese government's Western exploration programme and over the next 5–10 years they will put 50 billion RMB into its development.[citation needed]

Culture

Language

The local varieties of Mandarin Chinese, usually classified by county, are a part of Southwestern Mandarin. The dialect of Enshi City is considered standard in the prefecture. Some differences from Standard Chinese phonology are the merging of the consonants /n/ and /l/, and of /x/ and /f/.

Cuisine

Traditional foods are called "hezha foods" after hezha (合渣), a regional specialty of soybean pulp and vegetables. Historically, people in Enshi considered their foods to be a branch of Sichuan cuisine, and after ethnic classification they have been considered Tujia foods. Although meat and rice had become abundant, local cuisine became popular again in the 1990s.

The main flavors of traditional Enshi cuisine are sour, spicy, sweet, and glutinous. Maize is eaten more than rice, and potatoes and sweet potatoes are also staple foods. Other common ingredients are soybeans, preserved vegetables, wild plants, and chili peppers. Many festival foods use glutinous rice, and banquets have more meat dishes and maize wine. Compared to mainstream Chinese cuisine, there are more mixed dishes and a looser distinction between fan (staples) and cai (meat/vegetables).

Widely-eaten dishes include oil-tea soup, baogufan, and shefan. Oil-tea soup (油茶汤) is made with tea seed oil, tea, popped glutinous rice, and maize. Baogufan (包谷饭) is steamed cornmeal and rice. Shefan (社饭) is a glutinous rice and wormwood dish traditionally eaten for Chunshe.

Transportation

The Sidu River Bridge in southern Badong County, the world's second highest bridge

The prefecture has only a small amount of Yangtze River frontage, but Badong, in the prefecture's northeast, has a Yangtze River port.

The Qing River in the central part of the prefecture, with its cascade of reservoirs, is an important waterway as well.

Due to the mountainous terrain, until recently the prefecture had no railways, and even the highways were of doubtful quality.

A China Eastern Airlines aircraft in a special livery for promotion of tourism in the prefecture

The Yichang−Wanzhou Railway, completed in December 2010, crosses the prefecture from east to west, providing a more direct connection between Hubei and Sichuan than was previously available. In addition, the Chongqing−Lichuan Railway from the Lichuan Railway Station on the Yiwan line connects the cities. A single line now connects Enshi with Beijing and Wuhan as well as many additional cities. The train between Beijing and Enshi takes approximately 24 hours and includes many stops along the way.

The G42 Shanghai–Chengdu Expressway, routed along the same Yichang-Wanzhou corridor, was completed in 2014. Sidu River Bridge, part of the expressway, was at the time of its construction the world's highest bridge.

Xujiaping Airport is the only airport in Enshi.

Economy

Enshi City has selenium deposits. Between 1930 and 1960, people in some villages reported symptoms of selenium poisoning, and Yutangba residents were evacuated after their livestock died. Later, selenium deposits were discovered near Yutangba and found to be highly enriched, unlike previously known deposits. Selenium Square in the city is named after this rare element.

The countryside has a diverse range of flora and fauna, including many Chinese herbs. Much of the mountain landscape is covered in virgin forest and is home to pangolins.

Enshi locals are especially proud of their potato crops and consider the potato and tea crops to be the region's agricultural specialties.

Enshi Prefecture possesses significant hydroelectric resources. Among major hydroelectric dams already completed, or under construction, within the prefecture are:

References

  1. 1 2 3 恩施土家族苗族自治州历史沿革 [Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture Historical Development] (in Simplified Chinese). XZQH.org. 6 August 2014. Retrieved 27 December 2018. 全州面积24061平方千米，{...}2010年第六次人口普查，恩施州常住总人口3290294人，其中：恩施市749574人，利川市654094人，建始县412038人，巴东县420840人，宣恩县310368人，咸丰县300618人，来凤县242870人，鹤峰县199892人。
  2. ↑ 湖北省统计局、国家统计局湖北调查总队 (August 2016). 《湖北统计年鉴－2016》. China Statistics Press. ISBN 978-7-5037-7847-6. Archived from the original on 2017-03-01. Retrieved 2017-06-05.
  3. ↑ 恩施州情概况（3） 行政区划 [Enshi Prefecture Overview 3 Administrative Divisions] (in Simplified Chinese). Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture People's Government. 20 November 2018. Archived from the original on 27 December 2018. Retrieved 27 December 2018. 恩施自治州下辖恩施、利川2个县级市；建始、巴东、宣恩、咸丰、来凤、鹤峰6个县。
  4. ↑ 2017年统计用区划代码和城乡划分代码：恩施土家族苗族自治州 [2017 Statistical Area Numbers and Rural-Urban Area Numbers: Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture] (in Simplified Chinese). National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China. 2017. Retrieved 27 December 2018. 统计用区划代码 名称 422801000000 恩施市 422802000000 利川市 422822000000 建始县 422823000000 巴东县 422825000000 宣恩县 422826000000 咸丰县 422827000000 来凤县 422828000000 鹤峰县
  5. ↑ Wu, Xu (2003-12-01). ""Turning Waste into Things of Value": Marketing Fern, Kudzu, and Osmunda in Enshi Prefecture, China". Journal of Developing Societies. 19 (4): 433–457. doi:10.1177/0169796X0301900401. ISSN 0169-796X.
  6. ↑ 湖北290米深天坑藏动植物王国. 燕子筑巢昆虫飞翔 [A plant and animal kingdom preserved inside a 290-meter deep Hubei sinkhole]. 淮海晚报 (in Chinese (China)). 2015-05-22.
  7. ↑ "Photos: See the Chinese Sinkhole That Developed Its Own Ecosystem". The Wall Street Journal Blog. 2015-05-22.
  8. ↑ Yan, Qingyang (March 2015). "The Perceptual Categorization of Enshi Mandarin Regional Varieties". Journal of Linguistic Geography. 3 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1017/jlg.2015.3. ISSN 2049-7547.
  9. 1 2 3 Wu, Xu (2004-10-01). ""Ethnic Foods" and Regional Identity: The Hezha Restaurants in Enshi". Food and Foodways. 12 (4). Routledge: 225–246. doi:10.1080/07409710490518546. ISSN 0740-9710.
  10. ↑ See, e.g., the characterization of the China National Highway 318 and China National Highway 209 as "unstable and unsafe" in Yichang-Wanzhou Railway (SEIA) Archived 2009-08-07 at the Wayback Machine (Asian Development Bank, June 2003), p. 6
  11. ↑ "Yichang-Wanzhou Railway Project" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-12-11. Retrieved 2009-11-04.
  12. ↑ Liu, Yinbo; Chongxu Wang; Yuancheng Peng (2008). "The Construction of Sidu River Suspension Bridge". Proceedings of the 2008 International Bridge Conference (IBC 08-56). Pittsburgh: Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on 2009-02-15. The paper presents the key aspects of the construction of a 1222 meter long suspension bridge over Si Du river in the deep mountainous area in central China. The bridge spans over a 550 meter deep valley, which is the highest suspension bridge in the world. The challenges facing the construction include: limited working area, complicated geological conditions, restricted transportation access to the site, special wind gust conditions, and restricted access for superstructure installation.
  13. ↑ Yu, Tao; Hou, Wanling; Hou, Qingye; Ma, Wenjun; Xia, Xueqi; Li, Yutong; Yan, Beizhan; Yang, Zhongfang (September 2020). "Safe utilization and zoning on natural selenium-rich land resources: a case study of the typical area in Enshi County, China". Environmental Geochemistry and Health. 42 (9): 2803–2818. doi:10.1007/s10653-020-00519-0. ISSN 0269-4042. PMC 7903387. PMID 32036508.
  14. ↑ Huang, Yang; Wang, Quanxin; Gao, Jin; Lin, Zhiqing; Bañuelos, Gary; Yuan, Linxi; Yin, Xuebin (2013-03-05). "Daily Dietary Selenium Intake in a High Selenium Area of Enshi, China". Nutrients. 5 (3): 700–710. doi:10.3390/nu5030700. ISSN 2072-6643. PMC 3705314. Archived from the original on 2026-03-08.
  15. ↑ Caixia, Feng; Jiajun, Liu; Ruizhong, Hu; Shen, Liu (July 2004). "Geochemistry of the Yutangba Se deposit in western Hubei, China". Chinese Journal of Geochemistry. 23 (3): 255–264. doi:10.1007/BF02842073. ISSN 1000-9426.