Yongkang, Zhejiang

"Yongkang City" redirects here. For the district in Tainan, Taiwan, see Yongkang District.

Yongkang 永康市 Yungkang
County-level city
Xijin Bridge
Yongkang Location in Zhejiang
Coordinates: 28°54′N 120°02′E
Country	People's Republic of China
Province	Zhejiang
Prefecture-level city	Jinhua
Area
• Total	1,046.02 km2 (403.87 sq mi)
Population  (2010 census)
• Total	723,490
• Density	690/km2 (1,800/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+8 (China Standard)
Postal code	321300
Area code	0579
Website	http://www.yk.gov.cn/

Yongkang (Chinese: 永康; pinyin: Yǒngkāng), formerly known as Lizhou (Chinese: 丽州; pinyin: Lìzhōu), is a county-level city located in the central part of Zhejiang province of the People's Republic of China. It is southeast of the Jinhua City boundary, about 180 km away from Hangzhou. It has an area of 1,049 km² (405 sq mi) and a population of 536,000 with more than 100,000 non-resident workers. Its metro area, consisting of Yongkang City and Wuyi County, was home to 1,073,389 inhabitants at the time of the 2010 census.

History

A map of the Yongkang government office during the Qing dynasty

The county was formally established during the time of the Wu Kingdom (222~280 CE) and the Three Kingdoms (220-280 CE) in 245 CE. The Chinese name Yongkang means "eternal well-being." In the last two decades, the county has been well known for both its aggressive promotion of tourism and its booming hardware manufacturing industry. It is widely considered as the "Hardware Capital of China.". However, this term has also been used in association with Shenzhen. In 2003, Yongkang's GDP ranked 47th out of over 1000 counties nationwide.

Lizhou was the ancient name of Yongkang. According to legend, when the mother of Sun Quan (the King of Wu Kingdom) was ill, she went on a pilgrimage to pray for "eternal well-being" in a temple in Yongkang. After she recovered, Sun Quan was very pleased. He named the area Yongkang. At that time, it was a part of Wushang City. During the Tang dynasty, Yongkang was promoted under the name Lizhou, eventually becoming the general administrative area of Yue Prefecture.

In 1992, the State Council approved Yongkang as a county-level city.

Administrative divisions

Subdistricts:

• Dongcheng Subdistrict (东城街道)
• Xicheng Subdistrict (西城街道)
• Jiangnan Subdistrict (江南街道)

Towns:

• Zhiying (芝英镇)
• Shizhu (石柱镇)
• Gushan (古山镇)
• Xiangzhu (象珠镇)
• Longshan (龙山镇)
• Huajie (花街镇)
• Qiancang (前仓镇)
• Zhoushan (舟山镇)
• Fangyan (方岩镇)
• Xixi (西溪镇)
• Tangxuan (唐先镇)

Economy

Since ancient times, Yongkang has been known for hardware production. After 30 years of reform and modernization, Yongkang evolved from traditional to modern hardware, accelerating the pace of industrial upgrading and product branding. The county then became known at home and abroad as a "hardware capital."

The city of Yongkang has always enjoyed the name of the “City of Metals”. With metals and machinery as the flagship, the industries including electric tools, building materials, and automobile/motorcycle accessories, etc have been strengthened without interruption, and the city is a national base for production of electric tools, automobile/motorcycle accessories, anti-theft doors, electric bicycles, scooters, and thermal cups.

Among them, in order to anti-theft security door at the core products, Yongkang Door Industry has now become the eight Yongkang hardware industry, the largest and most stable industries in the world, in this year facing an unprecedented economic crisis situation, the industry still maintained a strong growth momentum in the first-half growth rate of 18% growth rate among the eight Yongkang hardware industries. Yongkang hardware products have become the dominant product, a Yongkang city's calling card. Yongkang has a thriving anti-theft door industry which has been growing since 1997. Beginning with the manufacture of metal gates, the industry now has 454 enterprise portal products. This includes an annual output of more than 2,500 million tang variety of products, and exports of more than 700 million tang. An industry-year output value of 100 billion yuan accounts for 70% of the national output of anti-theft doors. To achieve such stellar results, the most fundamental reason is that from the early stage of development, the whole Yongkang Door Industry attached great importance to product quality and having a rational understanding of the development. "Establishing the brand, standards and innovation" has always been Yongkang Door manufacturers' consensus.

Yongkang produces 1 scooter every day, the most in the world. Yongkang produces 3 anti-theft doors every day, accounting for 1% of the national output of anti-theft doors. Yongkang produces 2 cups every year, accounting for 9% of the national output of different types of cups. 52% of the national output of stainless steel tableware comes from Yongkang. 45% of the national output of daily-use weighing apparatus comes from Yongkang. A third of the national output of power tools comes from Yongkang. Packaging drums, building non-slip case scales, the degree of scales, and other products accounted for more than 90% of the domestic market. Scooters, gas stove burners accounted for 90% of the total exports. Pumps accounted for 50% of the total exports. Saw blades accounted for 1/3 of the total exports. Weighing manufacturing enterprises accounted for 35/235 of the national output.

Every day there is 1 new private enterprise in Yongkang.

Yongkang is named the "Cradle for the elderly", the "face", the "Cup of joe", the "Door store of America”, and the "Recreational toilet of Brittany".

Cityscape

• 
  Yongkang at night (2008)
• 
  Confluence of Hua Brook (华溪) on the left and Nan Brook (南溪) on the right, forming the Yongkang River (永康江) in the middle (2010)

See also

• Xijin Bridge, a famous covered bridge in China

External links

• The city of doors.china doors city
• Official site
• City Map