About Zhenjiang

Zhenjiang is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Jiangsu province in the eastern People's Republic of China (PRC). Sitting on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, it borders the provincial capital of Nanjing to the west, Changzhou to the east, and Yangzhou across the river to the north. It is today an important transportation hub, owing to its location near the intersection of the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal.

Culture and folklore

1. Zhenjiang natives speak a dialect of Lower Yangtze (Jianghuai) Mandarin Chinese, at the edge of a linguistic border with the Wu language.

2. In a park on the edge of Zhenjiang there is a spring which was described in the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD) as being the best in Jiangsu for the making of tea, now famous as "Number One Lifespring Under Heaven".

3. The hilly scenery in Zhenjiang's southern suburbs was considered beautiful enough to be the theme of many landscapes by Chinese painters.

4. Near the Zhenjiang Museum in Boxian Park is the Shaozong Library, which among other documents contains a 100-volume collection of old sayings and proverbs, dating from the 7th to 11th centuries.

5. Zhenjiang is home to the Silkworm Raising Research Institute of the Academy of Agricultural Science of China.

6. A local specialty is a steamed meat pastry called Crab Cream Bun. Other famous special products include fragrant black vinegar (鎮江香醋), Chinkiang pork (镇江肴肉), and pickles.

7. Because of its strategic location on the Yangtze River, Shi Huangdi, the first Emperor of China, believed that the power of fengshui in Zhenjiang was too strong, so he ordered 3,000 prisoners to dig a tunnel through a hill to divert the power away.

8. In the traditional Chinese story Madame White Snake, a magical, 1000-year-old snake who could take the form of a woman escapes through a cave in Gold Hill (金山, Jinshan), to be reunited with her lover in the far-away city of Hangzhou.