Abbreviated as Ji, with Changchun as its capital, Jilin Province lies in the middle of Northeast China, covering an area of 187,400 square kilometers, which accounts for 2% of the whole country. With the high Changbaishan Mountains, the torrential Songhuajiang River, stretches of black soil and the strong flavor of its customs, the beautiful land of Jilin Province is rich in resources and nourishes its splendid culture. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the economy of Jilin has gone through a process of restoration, reconstruction, and growth. Especially since the reform and opening up the economy has maintained swift development and made great achievements. The overall strength of the economy has increased remarkably while people's living standards are moving from being adequately fed and clothed towards true prosperity. In 2001 the GDP of the province reached 203.3 billion yuan, breaking through the great 200 billion mark. The financial revenue surpassed the 20 billion yuan hurdle, reaching 21.8 billion. Investment in fixed assets reached 68 billion yuan. Geographical Location Jilin province is located in the central part of Northeast China, adjoining Heilongjiang Province in the north, Lianing Province in the south, and the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region in the west. It lies in the hinterland of the northeastern Asia composed of Japan, Russia, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, and the northeast part of China, adjacent to Russia in the east, and opposite to the DPRK in the southeast across the Tumen and Yalu rivers. Located between 122-131 degrees E and 41-46 degrees N., its territory covers 187,400 square kilometers, accounting for 2 percent of the nation's total, which extend 650 km from east to west, and 300 km from south to north. The land is high in the southeastern part and low in the northwestern, with a vast plain lying in its mid-west. Climate Jilin Province is located in the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere, east of the Euro-Asian continent, the northernmost section of the temperate zone in China, nearing the sub-frigid zone. The eastern part of the province is close to the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan, where the atmosphere is moist often accompanied with much rain. The climate of its western part, which is far from the sea and approaches to the arid Mongolian Plateau, is dry. As a whole, the province has a distinct temperate continental monsoon climate with a clear-cut change of four seasons. The yearly average temperature of most part of the province is 3-5 ��C. The annual time of sunshine is 2,200��3,000 hours. The annual average accumulated temperature in activity is 2,700��3,600 ��C. The precipitation of the province in a year is 550��910 mm and the frost-free period lasts 120��160 days. With hot and rainy days in the same season, it is good for farming. The frost period begins in the last 10 days of September and lasts until the end of April or early May. Population About 26,908,000 (2001) Provincial Capital Changchun Industry Jilin Province has a very solid industrial base. Relatively perfect industry system has come into being. There are more than 14,000 industrial enterprises now in Jilin and six dominant industries, which are engineering industry, petrochemical industry, pharmaceutical industry food industry, metallurgical and forestry industry. Jilin leads the country in its production of automobiles, railway cares, tractors, ferroalloy, carbonic products, timber, sugar, crude oil, vegetable oil and no-mineral products. One of the earliest industrial bases in this country, Jilin Province has many large and mid-sized state owned corporations comprising a large proportion of state enterprises in China. Of the 156 national priority construction projects in China's "First Five-year Development Plan", 12 were in Jilin Province. They included the First Automotive Works, the Jilin Chemical Fertilizer Plant, the Jilin Dyestuff Plant, and the Fengman Hydropower Station. The construction, expansion, and startup of the enterprises comprised Jilin the principal industrial framework. Since the reform and opening up, through the adjustment of its structure and innovation in its system, Jilin's industry has entered a new period of growth. The state enterprises are gaining vitality. There are large increases in the number of joint stock, foreign-funded and private enterprises. The two core industries; automotive and chemical are becoming increasingly strong. Electronics, food and pharmaceuticals are becoming leading industries. The construction and startup of the top projects such as the 150,000 car FAW-Volkswagen Works, the 300,000-ton ethylene facility of Jilin Chemicals, a million-ton corn processing plant, and the TFT-LCD display project have formed new economic growth points. High-tech industries have made further progress. The power of technical creation is increasingly strong. Enterprises' organizational structure is improving for the better. And there are larger numbers of big enterprise groups and "young giant" enterprises.  FAW Group--Centered around the First Automotive Works, Changchun, FAW Group is a huge automotive enterprise that is acclaimed as the cradle of China's auto industry. Established in 1953 and named by Chairman Mao Zedong, the works produced China's first Liberation truck and the first Red Flag car. Through the painstaking efforts of several generations, FAW has expanded its products from a single model of medium truck to 550 various vehicles. They range from light, medium, and heavy trucks to sedans, buses and compact cars. Their vehicles have an increasingly larger market share. FAW's core productivity is in four areas. In medium and heavy trucks, FAW is an international competitor and has the largest production capacity in all of China. In light trucks the annual production capacity is 60,000 vehicles. For Red Flag cars the annual capacity is 30,000 and for Jettas 150,000. During his third inspection tour of the works in the year 2000, President Jiang Zemin praised the changes at FAW by quoting Wang Anshi's Song Dynasty poem "Seeking my old memory in vain." Between 1956 (when the first truck came off the assembly line) and 2001, FAW made a tremendous contribution to the economic construction of China by producing over 4 million vehicles, having realized a profit of 20 billion yuan and providing 26,000 trained professionals to other enterprises all over China.    Jilin Petro-Chem Co., Petro China--A huge petrochemical enterprise based on the former Jilin Corporation of Chemical Industry (abbreviated as Jilin Chem). The company was the first large-scale chemical facility in China, as shown by its three enormous chemical plants (Jilin Chemical Fertilizer, Dyestuff, and Calcium Carbide) that were among the 156 key national projects in the "First Five-year Development Plan". It was constructed in 1954 and started production in 1957. In 1998 it was designated as part of China's National Corporation of Petroleum and Natural Gas. In 1999 China's National Group Company decided that the principal lines of business of the Jilin Chemical Industrial Company should be reorganized as part of Jilin Petro-Chem Company and the Jilin Chemical Joint Stock Co Ltd, Petro China while the other lines of business were to be part of the Jilin Chemical Group Company. The largest base of ABS production in the country, Jilin Petro-Chem Co., Petro China is one of the leading manufacturers of polyethylene, ethanediol, ethylene-propylene rubber, organo-silicon, and benzene products. For 40 years since its establishment, Jilin Chem has made tremendous contribution to the state by having produced over 20 billion yuan of profit and tax revenue and provided almost 30,000 trained people to other enterprises.   Tourism Resources In today��s new situation Jilin's tourist industry is in full blossom. It is already an important growth point of economic development. During the period of the 9th five-year development plan, the province's total number of visitors and revenues from tourism were ten times as high as that in the 8th five-year development plan. In 2001, total tourism revenues accounted for 4.12% of the province's GDP. To prepare for the new century, Jilin Province is taking advantage of the local resources and making great efforts to develop tourism with emphasis on the development of ecological and special tourist items. The province is setting up an eco-tourism model and is fostering new growth points in the tourist economy to ensure simultaneous growth of both the economic level of tourism and the overall economic benefits. The province boasts rich tourism resources. In the provincial capital Changchun, there are the former government office of the Manchurian State established by the Japanese invaders during World War II, the Jingyuetan Forest Park, the Monument to the Martyrs of the Soviet Red Army, the Automobile Town, and the Changchun Film Studio. In Jilin City, there are the mountain city of Gaojuli on Mount Longtans; Beishan Park; the Songhua Lake in Fengman; the Baohai Ancient Tombs in Mount Liuding of Dunhua; the Chengzishan mountain city in Yanji; the Changbeishan Nature Reserve that covers a vast area in the three counties of Changbei, Antu and Fusong and boasts scenic spots such as the Heavenly Pond, waterfalls, and groups of hot springs and grand canyons. In Tonghua, there is the Tomb of General Yang Jingyu. Agriculture Jilin is one of the important commodity grain bases in China. It abounds with soybean, corn, sorghum, millet, rice, small red bean, wheat, tuber, sunflower seeds, beets and tobacco. It has been among the national top in terms of percapita, commercial grain proportion for many years. About 2.96 million hectares of prairies in the province's northwest make it an ideal place for animal husbandry production, a well-known pasture land for sheep in the country as well as a major production base of commercial cattle and fine wool sheep in North China. Land Resources Jilin Province has long been called the "Land of Black Soil". It is endowed with fertile land, with an average organic content of 3%-6% at the surface, and as much as 15%+ in some places. The province has 39.82 million hectares of cultivated land, which accounts for 21.2% of the total area. The cultivated land per capita is 0.15 hectares, which is higher than the national average. The vast stretches of fertile plains yield large quantities of high quality agricultural products such as corn, rice, soybeans, vegetable oil, coarse cereals, etc. It enjoys a very favorable condition for developing agriculture that is highly productive and organic. Forestry Resources Jilin Province is a significant center of forestry in China. The forest coverage rate of the whole province is as high as 42.5%. With an 860.89 million cubic-meter reserve of standing timber, Jilin ranks 6th in China. The Changbaishan Mountain region has long been known as the "Changbai Forest Sea". There are pinus koraiensis, quercus, fraxinus mandshurica, phellodendron amurense rupr., and a variety of other species. The Changbai pine is a unique species. With a tall straight trunk, shiny bark and an elegant shape, its nickname is the "pine beauty". It has been included in the national list of the most important protected wild plants published in 1999 by the State Council. Mineral Resources Altogether 83 mineral resources have been identified. There are national leading reserves of bituminous shale, diatomite, tabular spar, cinder, nickel, molybdenum and mineral spring water. Jingyu, a county in the east has the best and most abundant resource of mineral spring water in China. Famous enterprises that produce bottled drinking water like Wahaha and Farmer's Spring have set up factories there. In the year 2000 it was given the honorary title "China's Changbai Mountain Jingyu Mineral Town" by China's National Federation of Mineral Industry, Mineral Water Committee. Grassland Resources One of the eight main pastoral areas in China, Jilin Province has a rich resource of grasslands. The grasslands cover is 5.84 million hectares of which the exploitable area is 4.38 million hectares. The grasslands are mainly in mountainous and hilly areas in the east and pastures in the west. The scattered grasslands in the east have high yields. The vast stretches of grassland in the west yield quality grazing, especially well known at home and abroad for their Guinea grass. They are important bases for developing animal husbandry. Water Resources Jilin is situated in the upper and middle reaches of the main rivers in northeast China, many of them having their origin in Jilin itself. There are 1,648 rivers with drainage basins of over 20 square kilometers, belonging to the five main river systems-the Songhuajiang, Liaohe, Yalujiang, Tumenjiang, and the Shuifenhe. Unlike the west, the east does not have a lot of ground water, but the river network in the east is dense and the quantity of surface flow is great. 98% of the hydropower is found spread throughout the mountainous eastern region. Among the big hydropower stations are Baishan, Hongshi, Yunfeng, and Fengman. There are 13 large, 85 mid-size and 1,300 small reservoirs, and over 5,500 smaller dams and ponds. The total storage capacity is 29.8 billion cubic meters of water. Wild Life and Plants The biological population in Jilin Province is healthy and diverse. There are as many as 5,248 identified types of wild plants and 437 types of wild animals. The province is famous for its "Three Treasures" and is a main producer of exotic food from the mountains. There are some 350 kinds of edible wild plants such as bracken, osmund, young fatsia shoots, pine mushroom, black fungus, hedgehog hydnum, mountain grapes, mountain walnuts etc. The popular Tonghua mountain grape wine is produced here. The Changbaishan mountainous region enjoys a reputation as one of the three main treasure troves of natural herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine. There are 1,452 medical plants such as ginseng, Chinese wild ginger, rhizoma gastrodiae, boschniakia rossica, etc. There are 77 nationally protected animals in the province, including Manchurian tigers, leopards, sikas, Manchurian sables, red-crowned cranes, golden eagles, red otters, Wusuli whitefish, etc. Since 1996 Jilin Province has been working hard, enforcing the relevant laws in order to save the wild animals on the verge of extinction. Traces of wild animals like sikas, black bears, wild boars, and lynxes have begun to appear. Even Manchurian tigers, which had not been seen for years, are frequently appearing in Jiaohe and Hunchun. The Three Treasures of the Northeast The three treasures are ginseng, sable fur, and pilose antler of sikas. Ginseng from the Changbaishan Mountains is a precious medicine. It gets its name (ren-sheng) from the fact that its shape is like that of the human body (in Chinese ren is the word for person). Because it has active compounds such as ginsenoside I-VI it increases vitality, nourishes the blood and calms the mind. It has a 4000-year history as a medical ingredient. Jilin Province is the largest producer of ginseng for export. Ginseng falls in two types-wild ginseng picked from the mountains and the cultivated kind. From a very harsh habitat, very slow growing and rarely found, wild ginseng is extremely expensive. In 1981 a farmer at Beigang, a settlement in Fusong County discovered a ginseng root that was 160 years old. It weighed 287.5 grams and was 79.5 centimeters long. People call it the ginseng king, and it is now displayed as a national treasure in the Jilin Province Hall in the People's Congress building in Beijing. The pilose antler of young stags is a precious ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. It functions well in generating energy and producing bone marrow. It also nourishes the blood, increases yang, and strengthens bones and muscles. As a large producer of sikas, Jilin Province manufactures a lot of goods from them, such as stag pilose antler tincture, sika tail essence, sika embryo paste, etc. Sable fur is a dark brown or grayish brown color. Standing out from the fur, individual needle-like white hairs are found here and there. Being lightweight and tough with deeply graceful and resplendent fine hair, the lustrous fur feels soft and warm. It is the best of all furs.