Jintang Island (金塘岛) is an island in the

Zhoushan Zhoushan is an urbanized archipelago with the administrative status of a prefecture-level city in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. It consists of an archipelago of islands at the southern mouth of Hangzhou Bay off the mainland c ...

prefecture-level city in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

's eastern

Zhejiang ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = ( Hangzhounese) ( Ningbonese) (Wenzhounese) , image_skyline = 玉甑峰全貌 - panoramio.jpg , image_caption = View of the Yandang Mountains , image_map = Zhejiang i ...

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

. It has a population of about 41700.Jintang Island Information Page
Zhoushan Web (2003-7-14) It is one of the closest islands to the continental shore of Zhejiang, being only from the southern Ningbo Beilun portJintang Island legends
and from the eastern

Zhoushan Island Zhoushan Island is the principal and namesake island in the Zhoushan Islands, formerly romanized as the ChusanIslands, an archipelago administered by Zhoushan Prefecture in Zhejiang Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the provinc ...

. Jintang is Zhoushan's fourth largest island with an area of .

History

The name Jintang Island is literally translated as "Golden Pond Island". It derived its name from the two ponds built on the western side of the island by the locals to prevent erosion of the western coastline. The soil of the inner pond coastline became fertile and rich in minerals, bringing about bountiful harvests to the locals who dub the island "Golden Pond" (金塘).

Industries

Jintang Island is largely an agricultural community. Its thriving industries include farming, fishing and furniture production. It is most famous for the production of Jintang Plums (金塘李), a local fruit. The fruit has received a number of awards and accolades, earning a Zhejiang Province High Quality Agricultural Product Exhibition Silver Award in 1998 and subsequently a Gold Award in 1999 when the island was also conferred the namesake of "Jintang Plum Township (金塘李之乡)" by the provincial government. Jintang Island coastal waters produce a large number of marine products, such as squid, cuttlefish, fish, and more.

Transportation

Transport between Jintang and Zhoushan is made by boat. In April 2006 work began for the construction of two bridges, the Xihoumen Bridge (西堠门大桥) and Jintang Bridge (金塘大桥) connecting Zhoushan Archipelago with the country's continental area, an improvement long-awaited by Zhoushan people. They are scheduled to be completed in 2008. The two bridges are the second phase of a huge "continent-island joint project" launched by Zhoushan in 1999 to link the archipelago with the mainland through five bridges. Construction of the other three bridges have been completed.

Xihoumen Bridge

The 5.3-kilometer-long Xihoumen Bridge, linking Jintang and Cezi, two major islands of the archipelago, is a suspension bridge consisting of a 2.6-kilometer sea-crossing bridge and 2.7-kilometer side joint sections on both ends, costing 2.48 billion yuan (US$299.87 million). It allows the passage of ships of 30,000 dead weight tonnage.

Jintang Bridge

The Jintang Bridge, linking Jintang Island and

Zhenhai Zhenhai is a District (China), district and former county of Ningbo city in Zhejiang Province in eastern China. It has a population of 200,000. History Zhenhai’s city walls previously covered a circuit of and rose to . The British Battle o ...

(on

Ningbo Ningbo is a sub-provincial city in northeastern Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises six urban districts, two satellite county-level cities, and two rural counties, including several islands in Hangzhou Bay and the Eas ...

prefecture), will be long. The 7-billion-yuan project consists of an sea bridge and joint sections totaling . On 27 March 2008, there has been an accident involving a Taizhou freighter that hit the bridge construction site. Two pieces of reinforced concrete from the bridge weighing 3000

ton Ton is any of several units of measure of mass, volume or force. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. As a unit of mass, ''ton'' can mean: * the '' long ton'', which is * the ''tonne'', also called the ''metric ...

s each got stuck in the cockpit of the freighter, which was moving at a fast pace. The accident will result in further delay to the completion of its construction. There are plans by a Sino-

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

consortium A consortium () is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations, or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a ...

to build an archimedes bridge in the Jintang

strait A strait is a water body connecting two seas or water basins. The surface water is, for the most part, at the same elevation on both sides and flows through the strait in both directions, even though the topography generally constricts the ...