Zhengzhou

Zhengzhou, previously romanized as Chengchow, is the capital and the largest city of Henan Province, China. With a population of 12.6 million people in 2021, it is China's 11th largest city by population. Zhengzhou is situated in north-central Henan Province at the eastern foothills of the Xiong'er Mountains and on the southern bank of the Yellow River; where its valley widens into the North China Plain. Zhengzhou is a major city within the Zhongyuan region, an area that has been continuously inhabited for over 4,000 years, and is considered a cradle of Chinese civilization. It is one of China's nine national central cities, serving as a major political, economic and transport hub. The Zhengzhou metropolitan area, including Zhengzhou and Kaifeng, is the core area of the Central Plains Economic Zone. Originally an early Shang dynasty urban center, the area that is now Zhengzhou was the site of the Shang capital Áo (隞) or Bó (亳) (c. 1600-1046 BC). Following the Shang dynasty, Zhengzhou remained an important regional city due to its strategic location on the North China Plains, and the city first became the seat of a prefectural administration in 587 CE in the Sui dynasty. In the Republican period, Nationalist forces breached the dikes at Huayuankou in June 1938, north of Zhengzhou, to hinder the Japanese advance during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The resulting flood inundated large areas of Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces; the Yellow River did not return to its original course until 1947. In the 1990s, following China's reform and opening up supported by Deng Xiaoping, Zhengzhou's economy expanded rapidly: its gross domestic product grew from ¥2.03 billion in 1978 to over ¥100 billion by 2003. As state monopoly reforms progressed throughout this decade, Zhengzhou pioneered commercial reforms among inland regions, with numerous wholesale markets forming...