Overview

Sheltered by the red-soiled Taihang Mountains to the west and bordered by the fertile Hebei plain which fans out on its other three sides, Shijiazhuang is a railway junction on the Beijing-Guangzhou line, 283 km.(176 mi.) south of Beijing, a four-hour train ride. Although archaeologists have revealed a culture in Shijiazhuang dating to the 3rd century BC and’ the city was a minor garrison town under the Qin, modern-day Shijiazhuang owes its existence almost entirely to the railway; before its construction in1905, Shijiazhuang was a village of only 500-600 people and had only “six roads, six temples, and four walls,” according to county records. Now it has a population of 1.18 million, including 24 national minorities, and serves as the capital of Hebei Province. In 1947, incidentally it also became one of the first cities liberated by the Red Army, which had several guerrilla bases in the area.

The largely residential city center is laid out along broad, tree-lined avenues built since 1949. To the west is a mining area where coal, iron ore, limestone, and marble are extracted. This is a major cotton-growing region. Industry is located mainly in the eastern part of the city and includes textile manufacturing, dyeing, and printing. Shijiazhuang is also the home of northern China’s largest pharmaceutical plant, which specializes in antibiotics.