Dingzhou, or Tingchow in

Postal Map Romanization Postal romanization was a system of transliterating place names in China developed by postal authorities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For many cities, the corresponding postal romanization was the most common English-language fo ...

, and formerly called Ding County or Dingxian, is a

county-level city A county-level city () is a County-level divisions of China, county-level administrative division of the China, People's Republic of China. County-level cities have judiciary, judicial but no legislature, legislative rights over their own local or ...

in 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 ...

Baoding Baoding is a prefecture-level city in central Hebei province, approximately southwest of Beijing. As of the 2020 census, Baoding City had 11,544,036 inhabitants, of which 2,549,787 lived in the metropolitan area made of 4 out of 5 urban distri ...

Hebei Province Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

. As of 2020, Dingzhou had a population of 1.1 million. Dingzhou has 3 subdistricts, 13 towns, 8 townships, and 1 ethnic township.定州市-行政区网
/ref> Dingzhou is about halfway between Baoding and

Shijiazhuang Shijiazhuang; Mandarin: ; formerly known as Shimen and romanized as Shihkiachwang is the capital and most populous city of China's Hebei Province. A prefecture-level city southwest of Beijing, it administers eight districts, three county-le ...

, southwest of

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, and northeast of Shijiazhuang.

History

Dingzhou was originally known as Lunu in early

imperial China The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Y ...

. A tomb about southwest of Dingzhou from 55BCE was discovered and excavated in 1973. It contained several fragments of Han literature, including

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s of

Confucius Confucius (; pinyin: ; ; ), born Kong Qiu (), was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the phil ...

's ''

Analects The ''Analects'', also known as the ''Sayings of Confucius'', is an ancient Chinese philosophical text composed of sayings and ideas attributed to Confucius and his contemporaries, traditionally believed to have been compiled by his followers. ...

'', the

Taoist Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ...

'' Wenzi'', and the '' Six Secret Teachings'', a military treatise. The identity of the tomb's occupant is unknown, but Chinese archaeologists have speculated that it belonged to

Liu Xiu The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as st ...

or Xu Xing. Dingzhou took its present name around 400CE when it became the seat of

Ding Prefecture Ding may refer to: Bronze and ceramics * Ding (vessel), a bronze or ceramic cauldron used in ancient and early imperial China * Ding ware, ceramics produced in Dingzhou in medieval China People * Ding (surname) (丁), a Chinese surname and list ...

under the

Northern Wei 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 Dynasties of China, impe ...

, displacing the earlier An Prefecture.. In the mid-6th century, its territory held 834,211 people living in 177,500

households A household consists of one or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is impo ...

. Under the Sui, the seat of Boling Commandery at present-day Anping was renamed "Gaoyang". In 607, Dingzhou then became the eponymous seat of a new Boling

commandery In the Middle Ages, a commandery (rarely commandry) was the smallest administrative division of the European landed properties of a military order. It was also the name of the house where the knights of the commandery lived.Anthony Luttrell and G ...

and retained that name and status under the Tang. until it returned to the name Dingzhou between 621 and 742 and again after 758. Its territory held only 86,869 people in 25,637 households in 639 but recovered to 496,676 people in 78,090 households by 742. In 1055, under the

Song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...

, the city became the home of the Liaodi Pagoda, which is today China's tallest surviving pre-modern

pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...

. Under the early Republic, it was known as Dingxian ( then romanized "Tingsien" or "Ting Hsien") from its status as the seat of Ding County. From 1926 to 1937, the county was the site of the National Association of Mass Education Movement's Ting Hsien Experiment of the Rural Reconstruction Movement. In the 1990s, the New Rural Reconstruction Movement maintained a training and outreach center.

Administrative divisions

Towns: * Qingfengdian (), Dongting (), Liqingu (), Mingyuedian (), Daxinzhuang (), Xingyi (), Zhuanlu (), Liuzao (), Pangcun (), Gaopeng (), Ziwei (), Dingningdian (), Dongwang (), Kaiyuan () Townships: * Dongliuchun Township (),

Zhoucun Township Zhoucun district () is a district in Zibo, Shandong Province, China. The district covers and had an estimated population of 288,440 in 2013. Its main industry is textiles and furniture Furniture refers to objects intended to support various ...

(), Daluzhuang Township (), Yangjiazhuang Township (), Zhaocun Township (), Xicheng Township (), Xizhong Township (), Haotouzhuang Hui Ethnic Township ()

Climate

Transportation

Dingzhou is one of the transportation hubs in

North China North China () is a list of regions of China, geographical region of the People's Republic of China, consisting of five province-level divisions of China, provincial-level administrative divisions, namely the direct-administered municipalities ...

Railroads

* Jingguang railway: Dingzhou Railway Station * Jingshi Passenger Railway: Dingzhou East Railway Station * Shuohuang Railway: Dingzhou South Railway Station

Highways

* Jingshi Expressway * China National Highway 107

Places of interest

* Liaodi Pagoda: The tallest existing pre-modern Chinese pagoda * Dingzhou Confucius Temple: A well-preserved Confucius temple in Hebei

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Sidney D. Gamble, Foreword by Y.C. James Yen. Field work directed by Franklin Ching-han Lee. ''Ting Hsien, a North China Rural Community'' (New York: International Secretariat Institute of Pacific Relations, 1954; rpr Stanford University Press, 1968). xxv, 472p. 54009009. Sociological survey conducted in the 1920s and early 1930s.

External links

Dingzhou City Government Website

Report on excavation of Dingzhou tombs
{{Authority control Geography of Baoding County-level cities in Hebei