Thinking Citizen Blog — Heilongjiang — Northernmost and Easternmost Province, Second Poorest In GDP Per Capita, Harbin Is Capital
Thinking Citizen Blog — Tuesday is Economics, Finance, and Business Day
Today’s Topic: Heilongjiang — northernmost and easternmost province, second poorest in GDP per Capita, Harbin is capital
The name means “black dragon river,” the Mandarin name for the Amur river which is home to the kaluga, one of the largest fresh water fish in the world — this sturgeon can reach up to 18 feet! The river forms of the northeastern border between Russia and China. Harbin is the capital and largest city and is best known for its ice sculpture festival. The province was under Japanese occupation from 1931 to 1945 (part of the puppet state of Manchukuo).
Have you ever lived in Heilongjiang? studied there? visited? What do you know about the history, politics, economics, geography that the rest of us might not but would delight to learn?
Today, a few more notes.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
GEOGRAPHY AND DEMOGRAPHICS (30 million)
1. The population of 30 million is down from 38 million in 2011 but up 2 million in 1912. The ethnic mix is 95% Han, 3% Manchu, 1% Korean, and .4% Mongol.
2. “Much of the province is dominated by mountain ranges such as the Greater Khingan Range and Lesser Khingan Range…The highest peak is Datudingzi Mountain at 1,690 meters (5,540 ft), located on the border with Jilin province. The Greater Khingan Range contains China’s largest remaining virgin forest and is an important area for China’s forestry industry.”
3. “The east and southwest of the province, which are relatively flat and low in altitude, feature the Muling River, the Naoli River, the Songhua River, the Nen River and the Mudan River, all tributaries of the Amur, while the northern border forms part of the Amur valley.”
NB: Winters are “long and bitter,” while summers are “short and warm.”
HARBIN — weirdly because of its official boundaries, the “city proper” population (10 million) is larger than the “metropolitan population” (5.8 million), best known for the world’s largest ice and snow festival in the world (18 million visitors per year)
1. Two alternative etymologies for “Harbin” — “swan” in the Jurchen language or “a place for drying fishing nets” (Manchu).
2. “Founded in 1898 with the coming of the Russian-built Chinese Eastern Railway, the city first prospered as a settlement inhabited by an overwhelming majority of immigrants from the Russian Empire. “
3. “In the 1920s, the city was considered China’s fashion capital since new designs Paris and Moscow reached here first before arriving in Shanghai.”
NB: From 1932 until 1945, Harbin was the largest city in the Imperial Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Being well known for its historical Russian legacy and architecture, the city is famed for its European influence and serves as an important gateway in Sino-Soviet today.”
RICH IN PETROLEUM, GAS, COAL, AND GRAPHITE BUT RELATIVELY POOR BY GDP PER CAPITA
1. GDP per capita: Beijing $32,000, Shanghai $30,000, Heilongjiang, $7,600. Only Gansu is lower at $7,400.
2. “Heilongjiang is home to China’s largest plantations of rice, corn, and soybeans.”
3. An important source of lumber — especially Korea Pine and larch. Largest number of milk cows and the highest milk production in China.
NB: Huge wind power production potential.
FOOTNOTE — THE COURSE OF THE AMUR RIVER — note that Harbin is north and west of Vladivostok (320 miles away) and 470 miles north of Pyongyang, North Korea (not on the map), which is only 121 miles from Seoul. Changchun (pop. 9 million) is the largest city in Jilin province, just south of Heilongjiang. Shenyang (pop. 9 million) is the largest city in Liaoning province (just south of Jilin). To the east of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning is Inner Mongolia.
Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival — Wikipedia
List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP per capita — Wikipedia
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY INTO FOURTEEN BOOK-LENGTH PDFs:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
YOUR TURN — Please share:
a.) the coolest thing you learned this week related to business, economics, finance.
b.) the coolest thing you learned in your life related to business, economics, finance.
c.) anything at all related to business, economics, finance.
d.) anything at all
