Taicang 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 ...

under the jurisdiction of

Suzhou Suzhou is a major prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu province, China. As part of the Yangtze Delta megalopolis, it is a major economic center and focal point of trade and commerce. Founded in 514 BC, Suzhou rapidly grew in size by the ...

Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...

province, China. The city located in the south of the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

estuary opposite

Nantong Nantong is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Jiangsu province, China. Located on the northern bank of the Yangtze River, near the river mouth. Nantong is a vital river port bordering Yancheng to the north; Taizhou to the west; Suzhou, Wux ...

, being bordered by

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

proper to the south, while the river also delineates much of its northeastern boundary along

Chongming Island Chongming (), Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanized as Chungming, is an alluvial island at the mouth of the Yangtze, Yangtze River in East China covering as of 2010. Together with the islands Changxing Island (Shanghai), Changxing an ...

Administration

Taicang administers 7

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 ...

History

Toponym

Taicang as a place name is mentioned in a memorial to the throne of geographer Jia Dan during the Song dynasty, "Where lies to the east of Kunshan nowadays", he supposedly wrote, "is called Taicang, also known as Gangshen".

Overview

Taicang is a natural port. Under the Yuan, the city reached its peak between 1271 and 1368. Under the Ming, Taicang's Liuhe Harbor was the departure point for

Zheng He Zheng He (also romanized Cheng Ho; 1371–1433/1435) was a Chinese eunuch, admiral and diplomat from the early Ming dynasty, who is often regarded as the greatest admiral in History of China, Chinese history. Born into a Muslims, Muslim famil ...

's treasure fleets. It was also during this period that the shoals in the

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

estuary which later became

were placed under the supervision of Taicang Prefecture."Chongming County" in the ''Encyclopedia of Shanghai'', pp. 50 ff.
Shanghai Scientific & Technical Publishers (Shanghai), 2010. Hosted by the Municipality of Shanghai. It was the venue for the 2014 IAAF World Race Walking Cup.

Geography

The Taicang port is in the east of the city, and south of the Yangtze exit into the East China Sea. The center of the Taicang port is on 31°37′00" North, 121°14′00" East. The port line stretches 24.3 miles (38.8 km), of which 15.6 miles can park 50 thousand ton vessels. Taicang is in a humid subtropical climate zone with distinctive seasons. The average year round temperature is 15.5 Celsius. Precipitation is around 1078.1 mm.

Climate

Economy

Taicang is known for having operations from companies established by Germans since 1985, when the first German businessperson went to Taicang. Accordingly, the city obtained the nickname "Little

Swabia Swabia ; , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of ...

" with it having German-inspired businesses. The area does not have a significant German population as the German expatriates prefer Shanghai since it contains the

German School of Shanghai The German School Shanghai (, DSSH) is a private school in Shanghai, with locations in Hongqiao (DSSH) and Yangpu (DSSY). Campus Academics are based on education in Germany, finishing with the Abitur. The school contains: *Kindergarten *one ...

. The city has the German Centre for Industry and Trade Taicang (). ABA Chemicals, a chemicals manufacturing company, is headquartered in Taicang. By 2021 the city had a labor shortage with workers demanding higher wages.

Notable people

Chien-Shiung Wu Chien-Shiung Wu ( zh, t=吳健雄, p=Wú Jiànxióng, w=Wu2 Chien4-Hsiung2; May 31, 1912 – February 16, 1997) was a Chinese-American particle physics, particle and experimental physicist who made significant contributions in the fields of nucle ...

, Chinese-American physicist who built the atomic bomb in the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...

and disproved the

conservation of parity In physics, a parity transformation (also called parity inversion) is the flip in the sign of ''one'' spatial coordinate. In three dimensions, it can also refer to the simultaneous flip in the sign of all three spatial coordinates (a point refle ...

External links

Taicang guide on www.Jiangsu.net

References

{{authority control Cities in Jiangsu Administrative divisions of Suzhou County-level divisions of Jiangsu National Civilized City