Heilongjiang
(2002 est. pop. 38.3 million). Lying in the northernmost part of Northeast China, Heilongjiang Province has a total area of 453,900 square kilometers, of which 60 percent is made of mountains, 10 percent rivers, and 30 percent farmland. It has a common boundary with the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Jilin Province. In the north, it borders on the Russian Federation. Within its population are 2 million people of minority nationalities, including Manchus, Koreans, Huis, Mongolians, Daurs, Hezhens, Oroqens, and Evenkis.
Heilongjiang has a cold-temperate continental climate and a mean annual temperature of 3° to –2°C, an ice-bound period of five to six months, and a frostfree period of 120 days. It has warm, rainy summers with an annual rainfall of 400 to 650 millimeters and long hours of sunshine, which is favorable to crop growth.
Named after its longest river, Heilongjiang—the Black Dragon River—has five large river systems: the Heilong, Songhua, Wusuli, Nenjiang, and Suifen rivers. Rivers and lakes provide good-quality water resources for agriculture, industry, and human consumption. It has vast expanses of flatland and wide areas of fertile back soil and is one of China's major commodity grain growers. It is nicknamed "the Great Northern Granary," denoting its abundant production of soybeans, maize, wheat, millet, sorghum, sugar beets, flax, and sunflower seeds.
Its land area also includes the country's largest known oil reserve. The Daqing oil field is not only the biggest one in China, but it also is one of the largest known oil fields in the world. The province is rich in coal, gold, copper, aluminum, lead, zinc, silver, molybdenum, bismuth, and cobalt. Heilongjiang has a forest area of close to 210,000 square kilometers, or 49 percent of the province's total area, and leads the country in timber reserves. The mountains and forests abound in alpine weasels, sables, otters, deer, and musk deer. Ginseng is cultivated.
Rail is the principal means of transport in Heilongjiang, with Harbin as the central hub. Heilongjiang has the most developed inland shipping among the northern provinces.
Harbin, the provincial capital (with an estimated population of 2.8 million in 2002), is located on the south bank of the Songhua River and is the economic, cultural, and communications center of the province. The city used to be called "Little Moscow," as a result of colonialism, cooperation with, and immigration from nearby Russia. The town looks a little like the last threadbare outpost of imperial Russia. Harbin is also famous worldwide for its annual Winter Ice Festival.
Further Reading
China Handbook Editorial Committee. (1992) Geography, China Handbook Series. Trans. by Liang Liangxing. Beijing, China: Foreign Languages Press.
Hsieh, Chiao-Min, and Max Lu, eds. (2001) Changing China: A Geographical Appraisal. Boulder, CO: Westview.
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