Anze County () is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

in the south of

Shanxi Province Shanxi; formerly romanised as Shansi is a province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi and Datong. Its one-character abbreviation is ( ...

, China, under the administration of the

prefecture-level city A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province of China, province and above a Counties of the People's Republic of China, county in China's ...

Linfen Linfen () is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Shanxi province, People's Republic of China, China, bordering Shaanxi province to the west. Linfen City is located in the southern part of Shanxi Province, with the remaining branches of T ...

. The county spans an area of 1,967 square kilometers, and has a population of 82,012 as of 2010.

History

The county was first established in 528 CE as part of the

Northern Wei Dynasty Wei (), known in historiography as the Northern Wei ( zh, c=北魏, p=Běi Wèi), Tuoba Wei ( zh, c=拓跋魏, p=Tuòbá Wèi), Yuan Wei ( zh, c=元魏, p=Yuán Wèi) and Later Wei ( zh, t=後魏, p=Hòu Wèi), was an imperial dynasty of Chi ...

. In 606 CE, the county was renamed to Yueyang County (). During the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, the area belonged to the . In 1971,

Gu County Gu County or Guxian () is a county in the south of Shanxi Province, China, under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Linfen. The county spans an area of 1,196 square kilometers, and has a population of 91,798 as of 2010. History ...

split off from Anze County.

Geography

The county's elevation ranges from 732 meters to 1,592 meters in height, with the county's highest point being Mount Antai (). 45.44% of Anze County's land area is forested.

Climate

The county experiences an average of 2246.1 hours of sunshine annually, 539.1 millimeters of precipitation annually, 172 frost-free days annually, and an average temperature of 9.4 °C.

Administrative divisions

The county is divided into 4

towns A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

and 3

townships A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

. The county government is seated in . The county's 4 towns are Fucheng,

Hechuan Hechuan () is a district in the northern part of Chongqing Municipality, People's Republic of China, located at the meeting point of the Jialing, Fu and Qu rivers, with a history of 1,500 years. Hechuan is away from downtown Chongqing's Yuz ...

, , and . The county's 3 townships are , , and .

Economy

Anze County has a number of natural resources, particularly

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

. 1,944 square kilometers of land within the county has been identified as having significant coal reserves, totaling an estimated 24 billion tons of coal.

Iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

deposits within the county total an area of approximately 1.4 square kilometers, containing an estimated 1 million tons of ore. Significant reserves of

calcite Calcite is a Carbonate minerals, carbonate mineral and the most stable Polymorphism (materials science), polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on ...

, porcelain clay, and

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane on Earth makes ...

have also been discovered within Anze County.

Transport

National Highway 309 and Shanxi Provincial Road 326 both run through the county.

References

{{authority control County-level divisions of Shanxi