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| Name | Nanjing |
|---|---|
| Official name | 南京市 |
| Native name | 南京 |
| Settlement type | Sub-provincial city |
| Nickname | 金陵 (Gold Mausoleum), 石城 or 石头城 (Stone City) |
| Imagesize | 300px |
| Map caption | Nanjing's location within Jiangsu province |
| Dot x | |dot_y = |
| Pushpin map | China |
| Pushpin label position | |
| Pushpin map caption | Location in China |
| Coordinates region | CN |
| Subdivision type | Country |
| Subdivision name | China |
| Subdivision type1 | Province |
| Subdivision name1 | Jiangsu |
| Subdivision type2 | County-level divisions |
| Subdivision name2 | 13 |
| Subdivision type3 | Township divisions |
| Subdivision name3 | 129 |
| Leader title | CPC Nanjing |
| Leader name | Zhu Shanlu Committee Secretary |
| Leader title1 | Mayor |
| Leader name1 | Ji Jianye |
| Established title | Settled |
| Established date | 495 BC |
| Established title2 | |
| Established title3 | |
| Unit pref | |
| Area footnotes | (ranked 29th) |
| Area total km2 | 6598 |
| Area land km2 | |
| Population as of | 2009 |
| Population total | 7713100|population_density_km2 = 1123.5 |
| Timezone | China Standard Time |
| Utc offset | +8 |
| Elevation footnotes | |
| Elevation ft | 50|postal_code_type = Postal code |
| Postal code | 210000 - 211300 |
| Area code | 25 |
| Blank name | Licence plate prefixes |
| Blank info | 苏A |
| Blank1 name | GDP (2009) |
| Blank1 info | $65 billion |
| Blank2 name | GDP per capita |
| Blank2 info | $8,350 |
| Website | City of Nanjing |
| Footnotes | Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara) Méi (Prunus mume) |
Nanjing (; ; Romanizations: Nánjīng (Pinyin), Nan-ching (Wade-Giles), Nanking (Postal map spelling)) is the capital of Jiangsu province, China, and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture. The city's name (南京) means "Southern Capital", and was widely romanised as 'Nanking' until the Pinyin language reform, after which 'Nanjing' became the international standard spelling of the city's name.
Located in the lower Yangtze River drainage basin and Yangtze River Delta economic zone, Nanjing has always been one of China's most important cities. It served as the capital of China during several historical periods and is recognised as one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China. Nanjing was the capital of the Republic of China before the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Nanjing is also one of the fifteen sub-provincial cities in the People's Republic of China's administrative structure, enjoying jurisdictional and economic autonomy only slightly less than that of a province. Nanjing has long been a national center of education, research, transport networks, and tourism. The city will host the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics.
With an urban population of over five million (2006), Nanjing is the second largest commercial center in the East China region, after Shanghai. It has been ranked fourth by Forbes magazine in its listing of "2008 Top 100 Business Cities in Mainland China", seventh in the evaluation of "Cities with Strongest Comprehensive Strength" issued by the National Statistics Bureau, and second in the evaluation of cities with most sustainable development potential in the Yangtze River Delta. It has also been awarded the title of 2008 Habitat Scroll of Honor of China, Special Award of UN Habitat Scroll of Honor and National Civilized City.
Nanjing was one of the earliest established cities in south China. Fu Chai, Lord of the State of Wu, founded a fort named Yecheng (冶城) in today's Nanjing area in 495 BCE according to the legend. Later in 473 BCE, the State of Yue conquered Wu and constructed the fort of Yuecheng (越城) on the outskirts of the present-day Zhonghua Gate. In 333 BCE, after eliminating the State of Yue, the State of Chu built Jinling Yi (金陵邑) in the western part of present-day Nanjing. Under the Qin and Han dynasties, it was called Moling (秣陵). Since then, the city has experienced destruction and renewal many times.
Shortly after the reunity of China, West Jin collapsed in wars. It was at first rebels of eight Jin princes for the throne and later rebels and invasion from Xiongnu and other nomadic peoples that destroyed the rule of Jin in northern China. In 317, remnants of the Jin court, as well as Chinese nobles and wealthy families, fled from the north to the south and reestablished the Jin court in Nanjing, which was then called Jiankang (建康).
Thereafter, Nanjing remained as the capital of southern China during the North-South Division period for more than two and a half centuries. Possibly the best preserved monument of that era is the ensemble of the Tomb of Xiao Xiu (475–518), a brother of Emperor Wu of Liang, located in today's Qixia District on the eastern outskirts of the modern Nanjing. The period of division ended when the Sui Dynasty reunified China and destroyed almost the entire city, turning it into a small town.
The city of Nanjing was razed after Sui took it. It was reconstructed during late Tang Dynasty. It was again named capital (then known as Jinling (金陵) during the short-lived Southern Tang (937–975), who succeeded the Wu. Jiankang's textile industry burgeoned and thrived during Song Dynasty despite the constant threat from the northern foreign invasions. The Mongolians, the occupiers of China, further consolidated the city's status as a hub of the textile industry under the Yuan Dynasty.
The first emperor of the Ming Dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang (the Hongwu Emperor) who overthrew the Yuan Dynasty rebuilt this city and made it the capital of China in 1368. He constructed what was the longest city wall in the world at that time. It took 200,000 laborers 21 years to finish the project. The present-day city wall of Nanjing was mainly built during that time, and it is the longest surviving city wall in the world.
Nanjing remained the capital of the Ming Empire until 1421, when the third emperor of the dynasty, Zhu Di, relocated the capital to Beijing. It is believed that Nanjing was the largest city in the world from 1358 to 1425 with a population of 487,000 in 1400.
Besides the city wall, other famous Ming-era structures in the city included the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum (still one of the most famous sites of the region) and the Porcelain Tower (destroyed by the Taipings in the 19th century).
As the center of the empire, early-Ming Nanjing had worldwide connections: it was home of admiral Zheng He, who went to sail the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and it was visited by foreign dignitaries, such as the sultan of Brunei Abdul Majid Hassan, who died during his visit to China in 1408. The sultan's grave, with a suitably royal bixi stone tortoise monument, was discovered in Yuhuatai District south of the city in 1958.
Zhu Yousong, however, fared a lot worse than his ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang three centuries earlier. Beset by factional conflicts, his regime could not offer effective resistance to Manchu troops, when the Manchu army, led by Prince Dodo approached Jiangnan the next spring. Days after Yangzhou fell to the Manchus in late May 1645, the Hongguang Emperor fled Nanjing, and the imperial palace was looted by local residents. On June 6, Dodo's troops approached Nanjing, and the commander of the city's garrison, Zhao the Earl of Xincheng, promptly surrendered the city to them. The Manchus soon ordered all male residents of the city to shave their heads in the Manchu way, requisitioned a large section of the city for the bannermen's cantonment, and destroyed the former imperial palace, but otherwise the city was spared the mass murders and destruction that befell Yangzhou.
During the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), the Nanjing area was known as Jiangning (江宁) and served as the seat of government for the Liangjiang Viceroy. It had been visited by the Kangxi and Qianlong Emperors a number of times on their tours of the southern provinces.
Nanjing was invaded by British troops during the First Opium War, which was ended by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842.
Nanjing was the capital of the Taiping Kingdom in the mid-19th century, being renamed as Tianjing (天京) (lit. Heaven's Capital).
Both the Qing Viceroy and the Taiping king resided in buildings that would later be known as the Presidential Palace. As Qing general Zeng Guofan retook the city in 1864, massive slaughter occurred in the city with over 100,000 committing suicide or fighting to the death.
In 1927, the Kuomintang (KMT) under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek again established Nanjing as the capital of the Republic of China, and this became internationally recognized once KMT forces took Beijing in 1928. The following decade is known as the Nanjing decade, as they used the Presidential Palace in Nanjing as their headquarters.
In 1937, Japan started the Second Sino-Japanese War. Their troops occupied Nanjing in December, and carried out the systematic and brutal Nanking massacre (the Rape of Nanking). The total death toll could not be confirmed, since no official records were kept. Though often contested, most estimates, including those made by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal, put the number of dead between 300,000 and 350,000. The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall was built in 1985 to commemorate this event.
A few days before the fall of the city, the National Government of China was relocated to the southwestern city Chongqing and resumed Chinese resistance. In 1940，a Japanese-collaborationist government known as the "Nanjing Regime" or "Nanjing Nationalist Government" led by Wang Jingwei was established in Nanjing as a rival to Chiang Kai-Shek's government in Chongqing. In 1946, after the Surrender of Japan, the KMT relocated its central government back to Nanjing.
On April 23, 1949, The People's Liberation Army conquered Nanjing. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Nanjing was initially a province-level municipality, but very soon became, and today remains, the provincial capital of Jiangsu.
The Ministry of Interior of the Republic of China, as well as textbooks published in Taiwan, continue to refer to Nanjing as the official capital of the Republic of China, while Taipei is just its provisional capital.
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Category:Cities in Jiangsu * Category:Sub-provincial cities in the People's Republic of China Category:Provincial capitals in China Category:Treaty of Nanking Category:Yangtze River Delta
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