Changsha

Changsha 长沙市
Prefecture-level city
Skyline with Xiang River Aiwan Pavilion Baoning Temple Yuelu Academy Young Mao Statue Meixihu International Culture & Arts Center
Nickname:  "星城" (Star City)
Motto(s):  "心忧天下，敢为人先" (Care About the World, Dare to Be Pioneers)
Location of Changsha City in Hunan
Changsha Location of the city centre in Hunan
Coordinates (Changsha municipal government): 28°13′41″N 112°56′20″E / 28.228°N 112.939°E / 28.228; 112.939
Country	China
Province	Hunan
Municipal seat	Yuelu District
Divisions	9 County-level divisions, 172 Township divisions
Government
• Type	Prefecture-level city
• Body	Changsha Municipal People's Congress
• CCP Secretary	Wu Guiying
• Congress Chairman	Xie Weidong
• Mayor	Zhou Haibing
• CPPCC Chairman	Wen Shuxun
Area
• Prefecture-level city	11,819 km2 (4,563 sq mi)
• Urban	2,154.1 km2 (831.7 sq mi)
• Metro	3,911.1 km2 (1,510.1 sq mi)
Elevation	63 m (207 ft)
Population  (2022)[1]
• Prefecture-level city	10,420,600
• Urban	5,980,707
• Urban density	2,800/km2 (7,200/sq mi)
• Metro [2]	10,500,000
• Metro density	2,700/km2 (7,000/sq mi)
• Rank in China	19th
Ethnicity
• Han	99.22%
• Minorities	0.78%
GDP[3]
• Prefecture-level city	CN¥ 1.397 trillion US$ 207.7 billion
• Per capita	CN¥ 133,992 US$ 19,925
Time zone	UTC+08:00 (China Standard)
Postal code	410000
Area code	0731
ISO 3166 code	CN-HN-01
HDI (2016)	0.817– very high[4]
License Plate	湘A 湘O (police and authorities)
City tree	Camphor tree
City flower	Azalea
Languages	Hunanese(Changsha dialect), Mandarin
Website	en.changsha.gov.cn

Changsha
"Changsha" in Simplified (top) and Traditional (bottom) Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese	长沙
Traditional Chinese	長沙
Hanyu Pinyin	Chángshā
Xiang	[tsã13 sɔ33] (listenⓘ)
Literal meaning	"Long Sandbar"
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Chángshā Bopomofo ㄔㄤˊ   ㄕㄚ Wade–Giles Chʻang2-sha1 IPA [ʈʂʰǎŋ.ʂá] (listenⓘ) Wu Romanization Zan平-so平 Xiang IPA [tsã13 sɔ33] (listenⓘ) Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Chèuhngsā Jyutping Coeng4-saa1 IPA [tsʰœŋ˩.sa˥] Southern Min Hokkien POJ Tn̂g-soa

Changsha^[a] is the capital of Hunan, China. It is the 17th most populous city in China with a population of over 10 million,^[6] and the third-most populous city in Central China, located in the lower reaches of the Xiang River in northeastern Hunan.

The city forms a part of the Greater Changsha Metropolitan Region along with Zhuzhou and Xiangtan, also known as Changzhutan City Cluster. Greater Changsha was named one of the 13 emerging mega-cities in China in 2012 by the Economist Intelligence Unit.^[7] It is also a National Comprehensive Transportation Hub,^[8] and one of the first National Famous Historical and Cultural Cities in China. Changshanese, a kind of Xiang Chinese, is spoken in the downtown, while Ningxiangnese and Liuyangnese are also spoken in the counties and cities under its jurisdiction.^[9] As of the 2020 Chinese census, the prefecture-level city of Changsha had a population of 10,047,914 inhabitants.^[10]

Changsha has a history of more than 2,400 years of urban construction,^[11] and the name "Changsha" first appeared in the Yi Zhou Shu written in the pre-Qin era.^[12] In the Qin dynasty, the Changsha Commandery was set up, and in the Western Han dynasty, the Changsha Kingdom was established. The Tongguan Kiln in Changsha during the Tang dynasty produced the world's earliest underglaze porcelain, which was exported to Western Asia, Africa and Europe.^[13] In the period of the Five Dynasties, Changsha was the capital of Southern Chu. In the Northern Song dynasty, the Yuelu Academy (later Hunan University) was one of the four major private academies over the last 1000 years,^[14] with the famous couplet "惟楚有才, 于斯为盛" (Only Chu has talent, and it is flourishing in this area) coming down to modern times. In the late Qing dynasty, Changsha was one of the four major trade cities for rice and tea in China.^[15] In 1904, it was opened to foreign trade, and gradually became a revolutionary city. In Changsha, Tan Sitong established the School of Current Affairs, Huang Xing founded the China Arise Society with the slogan "Expel the Tatar barbarians and revive Zhonghua" (驱除鞑虏，复兴中华), and Mao Zedong also carried out his early political movements here. During the Republican Era, Changsha became one of the major home fronts in the Second Sino-Japanese War, but the subsequent Wenxi Fire in 1938 and the three Battles of Changsha from 1939 to 1942 (1939, 1941 and 1941–42) hit Changsha's economy and urban construction hard.^[16]

Changsha is now one of the core cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Belt and Road Initiative,^[17][18] a Beta- (global second-tier) city by the GaWC,^[19] a new Chinese first-tier city^[20][21] and also a pioneering area for China-Africa economic and trade cooperation.^[22] Known as the "Construction machinery capital of the world", Changsha has an industrial chain with construction machinery and new materials as the main industries, complemented by automobiles, electronic information, household appliances, and biomedicine.^[23][24] Since the 1990s, Changsha has begun to accelerate economic development, and then achieved the highest growth rate among China's major cities during the 2000s.^[25] The Xiangjiang New Area, the first state-level new area in Central China, was established in 2015.^[26] As of 2020, more than 164 Global 500 companies have established branches in Changsha.^[27] The city has the 27th largest skyline in the world.^[28] The HDI of Changsha reached 0.817 (very high) in 2016, which is roughly comparable to a moderately developed country.^[29][30]

As of 2023, Changsha hosts 59 institutions of higher education, ranking 8th nationwide among all cities in China.^[31] The city houses four Double First-Class Construction universities: Hunan, National University of Defense Technology, Central South, and Hunan Normal, making Changsha the seat of several highly ranked educational institutions.^[32][33] It is a major centre of research and innovation in the Asia-Pacific with a high level of scientific research, ranking 30th globally in 2023.^[34] Changsha is the birthplace of super hybrid rice, the Tianhe-1 supercomputer, China's first laser 3D printer,^[35] and China's first domestic medium-low speed maglev line.^[36] Changsha has been named the first "UNESCO City of Media Arts" in China.^[37] The city is home to the Hunan Broadcasting System (HBS), the most influential provincial TV station in China.^[38][39]

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