Ⅰ.Natural Geography
The city covers a total area of 11,917.7 square kilometers, of which, its
plain as a part, accounting for 94.2 percent. It is situated in the Northeast part of the
North China's plain, with the Yan Mountains on the north and Bohai Sea on the east. It
runs about 133 kilometers in its coastline from its north end located at Jianhe to the
south one at Qikou and lies in the temperate zone with a semi-humid and continental
monsoon climate, beautiful in the sight-seeing within the different seasons. Lying near to
Beijing, it is a port through which exports from a vast area of North China and Northwest
China could be made available oversea. Its main rivers include Haihe river, the South
Canal, the North Canal, Ziya river, Daqing river and Yongding river, etc.
Ⅱ. Population & Administrative Division
The permanent resident population of Tianjin was 9.1398 million in
2001,of the total, those living in the districts and counties under city administ ration
were 7.4799 million. It has 15 districts (Heping, Hedong,Hexi, Nankai,
Hebei,Hongqiao,Tanggu,Hangu,Dagang,Dongli,Xiqing, Jinnan, Beichen,Wuqing and Bao
di) and 3 counties (Ninghe,Jinghai and Jixian)
Ⅲ.Places of Historic Interest and Scenic Beauty
In Tianjin, there are some places of historic interest and scenic
beauty had been unearthed, of which, 37 have been in major preservation by the state and
the local government. It has over one thousand years history since the Temple of Dule was
built in Sui Dynasty with a large scale and the oldest-existing wooden structures in
Jixian; more than 1,000 peculiarly-shaped forts with ancientry are in the
41-kilometer-long Great Wall at Jixian county's Huangyaguan, looking ridgy, grand and
marvellous, which are known as the key to the lock in northern part of Jixian county.
Panshan Mountain is reputed to be grand and be “the First Mountain East of Beijing”,
with its peaks rising higher and more beautiful than another. Local buildings have been
integrated with rivers and mountains.
The Tianjin-based historic interest and scenic beauty also comprise
Tianhou Tem
ple, the Temple of Confucious, Dabei Buddhistic Monastery, the Grand Mosque, Tianzun
pavilion, Dagu forts, Wanghailou Church, Guangdong Guild Hall, Zhou Enlai & Deng
Yingchao Memorial Hall where exhibits their revolutionary activities they had gone in for
when they were in days of their youth.
The buildings in Tianjin keeping the ancient, mordern times and
modernized-style have been considered as “Multi-country Architectural Museum”. Within
Tianjin stand over a thousand of Xiaoyanglou (2 to 3-storey buildings foreigners built) in
the different styles of the western and eastern countries during the days from the end of
19th century to the earlier 20th century one, when the land in Tianjin was on lease to,
but actually seized by foreigners from nine countries and put under their colonial rule,
in the earlier opening of the Tianjin-based port abroad.
Tianjin is famous for its 4 folk arts: the painted clay figures by“Clay-Sculptor
Zhang”as known well to all parts of China and of the world;“New Year” pictures
produced in the town of Yangliuqing with a long history, that find favour in foreign
friends' eyes; Wei-made kites popular so much to win a gold medal at the Panama
International Fair in 1914; the carved bricks by “Brick-CarverLiu” being uniquely of
Tianjin's folk arts put into use of buildings-related decorations in China.
Ⅳ. Food Culture
In Tianjin, there are over 1,000-variety dishes being fresh, smooth and
soft, and saltish with a rich taste, in more than 300-year history, which are prepared by
local cuisines, from local perfect raw materials for cooking, together with good
flavouring. The traditional dishes have included the fried and stewed carps, meat braised
together with carps, deep fried and sauteed birds,“tiger skin”pork elbow, etc.And the
excellent dishes have shark's fins braised and brown sauce, sauted shrimps, cooked prawns,
shark's fins with crab roe, shredded chicken and mushroom, braised scallops, braised
abalone, sourish purple crab paste. In addition, 8-style cookeries as accepted generally
by all Chinese have been made in Tianjin, in spite of their being originally from
respectively Shandong, Suzhou, Sichuan, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hunan, Fujian and Anhui, and
also it has over 90 varieties of specially-flavoured and ordinary dishes, 45 varieties of
cold dishes and over 90 snacks with the local flavor. In the case of Tianjin flavour,
besides, 3“second-to-none”foods are well-known to parts of China and foreign countries
for: Goubuli Baozi, Erduoyan Zhagao,G uifaxiang Mahua. In 1998,“Maobuwen”Jiao zi,
another food in flavors, was awarded in China the title of the 4th “second-to-none food”
in Tianjin. Still, other locally-known snacks include: Zhang's Guo ren, Cao-cooked donkey
meat, Dafulai Guobacai, ShiTouMenKan Vegetable Baozi, Zhilanzhai Gaogan, Tiebobo
Aaoxiaoyu.However,Tianjin people are accustomed to breakfasting necessarily on
Dabing,Bangcui Guozi, bean curd with flavorings, Guoba Cai, soya-bean milk,Huntun,
Jianbing Guozi.
Ⅴ.Production Fields
Tianjin is the largest opening coastal city of North China and the
economic center of the Bohai Coastal Region. Its gross domestic product(GDP) was 184.010
billion yuan, the per capita GDP was 20,154 yuan.
Involved in its suburban and county-oriented agriculture, Tianjin has
been in production not only of both grain including wheat, corn, rice and economic corps
related with peanut,cotton, but also of fruits i.e. apple, pear, peach, date,grape,
tomato, chestnut, walnut and haw. Located at the west tip of Bohai Bay,however, Tianjin is
rich in such sea-resource products as hairtail, yellow croaker, little yellow croaker,
prawns and scallops and, also, in the fresh water-resource products as river crab, carp,
clam from its 9 rivers there within. And it has a great number of agricultural products
renowned at home and abroad, for example,“Xiao Zhan”rice with the up-to-date quality
spelt out by the state, that is available for export to Japan, Cuba and to the Southeast
Asian countries. Moreover, persimmon from Panshan Mountain, purple crab and white bait,
all have c
ome to a long-standing fame within China, too.
As the origins in the development of China's modern industry,
meanwhile, Tianjin is in a position to have a large variety of industries and supply their
own parts and components for their multi-purpose needs; in 2001, its total industrial
output value reached 294.04 billion yuan from 5,561 industrial enterprises, which total
annual sales exceed 5 million yuan. A large number of new industrial departments and
products had gradually grown to a reasonable scale so variously that they appeared with
mini-vehicles, color TV sets, motorcycle, refrig erator-compressors, elevator, the
big-sized seamless steel pipe, ethylene and electric communication equipment. It has
further been able to develop its high and new technology industry as involved not only in
electronic communications but also in the biology and medicine, and in new-found energies
and materials, with their output value accounting for 26.5 percent of total industrial
one.
Tianjin as a commercial port with a long history has developed more
rapidly in commerce, catering and services. In recent years , more than 10 large shopping
malls and marketplaces have been reconstructed. Binjiang Goods Purchase Center was also
built. Nanshi Food Mall and the Commercial Street on Heping Road were reconstructed. Thus
there are more than 40 shopping centers with an area of more than ten thousand square
meters. The total retail of whole social consumer goods reached 83.27 billion yuan in 2001
in the city.
Ⅵ.Infrastructure
By having made every effort on construction and transformation of
infrastructure for several years, the people in Tianjin had its harbor linked up
all-sidedly with the railway, the air and the highway as well as with the sea, which
appeared a well-developed network of the traffic to and from all directions by way of the
above said transport. Tianjin Harbor, as the largest comprehensive and commercial one in
North China, boasts China's biggest containerized cargo dock consisting of 77 berths
including 52 over 10-thousand-ton ones to make it co
nvenient to contact 300 harbors, for the business, in more than 160 countries and regions
all over the world, thus handling 113.69 million-ton cargoin 2001. Being both an important
airport for passengers airlines and the largest Cargo Air Transport Center in North China,
Tianjin Binhai International Airport is dealing in more than 10 domestic and international
air routes.At the junction of the Beijing-Shanhaiguan and Beijing-Shanghai railways is the
Tianjin Railway Transit Hub as the railway transit hub of North China. It has highways
accessible to all directions. There is 6 state-run highways
(Beijing-Tangshan,Beijing-Haerbin, Tianjin-Chongqing, Beijing-Fujian, Beijing-Zibo and
Beijing-Datong) to link up their traffics between Tianjin and regions both of North China
and of 9 provinces (Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shangdong,Guangdong
and Fujian).A urban traffic net has been developed of 3 circulating roads built within the
city and of 14 the key streets widened and lengthened in Tianjin city. The Information
Transit System has been established to consist of urban districts and its counties call,
the long-distance call together with microwave and satellite to form a complete sets of
post and communication. The total capacity of phone call exchange amounts to 3.646 million
lines, that of the automatic long-distance exchange to 81 000 circuits and telephone as
installed to 5.1157 million sets.
Ⅶ. Foreign Economic Relations
By now, the foreign-funds investment has been made in Tianjin by firms
from more than 10 countries situated respectively in Europe, Asia, America and Australian
Oceania. In top 500 strong corporations, for example, there are 77 corporations
establishing 203 investment projects in Tianjin. There are 14,233 foreign-funded and
joint-venture enterprises approved locally by the end of 2001. Total amount of foreign
capital to be utilized through the signed agreement and contracts totaled USD 35.976
billion. Total amount of foreign capital actually used totaled USD 26.234 billion.
Therefore, a wide opening to the world region in Tianjin has come into being through which
a quite number of fields at all levels and different localities are all presented toward
their march to the world. In 2001, total value of imports & exports reached USD 32.371
billion including USD 9.502 billion for exports, through Tianjin Harbor, garments,
electrical-machinery products, textiles and chemicals are exported to Japan, HongKong,
U.S.A., South Korea, Germany and the U.K.
Ⅷ.Education, Science & Technology and Culture
The education and culture affairs develop quite good, Tianjin is one of
regions
which own a lot of talents in North China, Nankai University and Tianjin University are
well-known at home and abroad. In 2001, there were 2,352 schools at all levels, with
1.6054 million students respectively inclusive of 23 institutions of higher education with
154 thousand students and of 708 ordinary middle schools with 592.4 thousand students. And
the proportion of enrollment of primary-school-age was 99.99 percent. The city has more
than 526.7 thousand technicians in specialities of natural science;on an ave rage,there
were 525 technicians per 10 thousand population and 2,739 technicians per 10 thousand
staff and employees.Throughout the city，there were 15 sets TV programs and 45 public
libraries and museums open to the public.
Ⅸ. People's Life
In 2001, per capita annual disposable income of urban households was
8,959 yuan and per capita living expenditures for consumption was 6,987 yuan, per capita
using house space was 14.6 square meters in urban areas. The number of color TV sets owned
by per hundred households was 134, refrigerators was 102.6, telephones was 92. The average
net annual income and expenditures of peasants was 4,825 yuan and 2,618 yuan respectively,
the per capita dwelling space in rural area was 23.93 square meters. The number of color
TV sets owned by per hundred rural households was 103, refrigerators was 66,washing
machines was 90 and motorcycles was 40.
