- Jiangsu Province

Population: 62.7 million

Urban population: 20.6 million

Nationalities: Han, Hui, and Manchu

Area: 100,000 square kilometers

Coastline: 1,000 km long

Climatic features: Spans the warm-temperate/semi-humid and subtropical/humid zones; clear-cut seasonal changes; frequent plum rains between spring and summer; typhoons with rainstorms in late summer and early autumn; occasional frost, dry and hot winds, and hailstorms.

Average temperature: -2 to -4 C. in January, 26 - 29 C. in July.

Annual Average Rainfall: 800 - 1,200 mm; high precipitation in the southeast and low in the northwest; 60 percent of the rain falls during the summer in the northwest.

Physical features: Plains cover 95 percent of the province's total area with well-developed water systems; the Grand Canal traverses all the east-west river system; borders the Yellow Sea.

Lakes: Lake Taihu, and Hongze, Gaoyou, Louma, and Yangcheng Lakes.

Rivers: Yangtze River, abandoned waterway of the Yellow River, lower reaches of Huaihe River, and Guanhe River.

Products: Rice, wheat, corn, sorghum, millet, potatoes, soybeans, peanuts, rapeseed, sesame, tea; cotton, ambary hemp, silk cocoons, jute; peppermint, spearmint, bamboo, and medicinal herbs; apples, pears, peaches, loquats, gingko; coal, phosphorus, salt, pottery clay; aquatic products.

Specialties: Gaoyou duck and duck eggs, Langshan chicken, Taihu whitebait, shad and anchovy of the Yangtze, crabs of Yangcheng Lake.

Administrative divisions: 21 cities and 54 counties.

Capital: Nanjing

Neighboring Areas: Zhejiang, Anhui, and Shandong Provinces; Shanghai Municipality.

Major Cities: Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou, Xuzhou, Lianyungang, Changzhou, Nantong, Zhenjiang

Tourist Attractions: Yangtze River Bridge in Nanjing; Suzhou gardens; Lake Taihu in Wuxi; the Grand Canal.

Source: Atlas of the Peoples Republic of China, Beijing, 1989.

Last modified: Tuesday, December 16, 2003