Jingdezhen is a prefecture-level city in eastern Jiangxi province with a total population of 1,669,057 (2018), bordering Anhui to the north. It is known as the "Porcelain Capital" because it has been producing Chinese ceramics for at least 1,000 years, and for much of that period Jingdezhen porcelain was the most important and finest quality in China. The city has a well-documented history that stretches back over 2,000 years.

History

Throughout both the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, the area of present-day Jingdezhen belonged to the Chu State. After the fall of the Chu, the area was incorporated into the Qin dynasty as part of Fan County () in .

The town was established during the Jin dynasty under the name Changnan (), The town's name would be changed twice, first in 742 CE to Fuliang (), and then in 1004 to Jingdezhen, its current name, The town was placed under the jurisdiction of Fuliang County.

In 1855 during the Taiping Rebellion, Taiping forces destroyed all 9,000 kilns in Jingdezhen. They would be rebuilt after the war in 1866.

In the 19th century, Jingdezhen became a county.

On April 29, 1949, Communist forces took the city.

In June 1953, Jingdezhen was upgraded into a provincial level city.

In July 1983, Leping County was also merged into the city.

Due to the relatively low cost of living and heritage of the porcelain industry, Jingdezhen has become a haven for young artists from all over China, who are often referred to known as Jingpiao (景漂).

Geography

thumb|left|220px|Topographic Map of Jingdezhen

Jingdezhen is situated in the north-east of Jiangxi and borders on Anhui; the city center area is located in the north-east of the Poyang Lake Plain. Its area is . The highest point is , with plains on the southern part having an average altitude of .

There are some cities and counties between Jiangxi and Anhui Province around Jingdezhen. To its north, northwest and northeast are Dongzhi, Xiuning, and Qimen County of Anhui province. To its south are Wannian County and Yiyang County. To its west is Boyang County. Lastly, to its southeast are Wuyuan County and Dexing City.

The prefecture's natural resources include kaolin, coal, manganese, and lime. Although various forms of kaolin has since been found around the world, it was the Jingdezhen kilns who first perfected its use in combination with petuntse to create world-class hard-paste porcelain. The name "kaolin" itself derives from the French Jesuit d'Entrecolles's transcription of the local term (), taken from Gaoling (, ), a village in Ehu Town in Fuliang County that provided most of the city's kaolin during the early and mid-Qing dynasty.

Climate

Jingdezhen has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa) affected by the East Asian monsoon, with long, humid, very hot summers and cool and drier winters with occasional cold snaps. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from in January to in July, with an annual average of . The average annual precipitation is . With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 25% in March to 56% in August, the city receives 1,798 hours of bright sunshine annually. Winter begins somewhat sunny and dry but becomes progressively wetter and cloudier; spring begins especially gloomy, and from March to July each of the months averages more than of rainfall. Summer is the sunniest season here, while autumn remains warm to mild and relatively dry. Extreme maximum temperatures of above have been recorded, as have extreme minimums below .

Administrative divisions

The city of Jingdezhen is divided into 4 county-level divisions: Zhushan District, Changjiang District, Fuliang County, and the county-level city of Leping. From the Ming period onwards, official kilns in Jingdezhen were controlled by the emperor, making "imperial porcelain" in large quantity for the court and the emperor to give as gifts.

Although apparently an unpromising location for potteries, being a remote town in a hilly region, Jingdezhen is close to the best quality deposits of petuntse, more contemporarily called pottery stone, in China, as well as being surrounded by forests, mostly of pine, providing wood for the kilns. It also has a river leading to river systems flowing north and south, facilitating transport of fragile wares. The imperial kilns were in the centre of the city at Zhushan (Pearl Hill), with many other kilns four kilometres away at Hutian.

It has produced a great variety of pottery and porcelain, for the Chinese market and as Chinese export porcelain, but its best-known high quality porcelain wares have been successively Qingbai ware in the Song and Yuan dynasties, blue and white porcelain from the 1330s, and the "famille rose" and other "famille" colours under the Qing dynasty. The town continues to produce cheaper tablewares in great quantity, as well as more expensive decorative pieces. During the Cultural Revolution, Jingdezhen produced a large number of porcelain Mao badges and statues of a seated Mao Zedong.

Jingdezhen porcelain has fetched record prices at auctions, with a blue and white porcelain jar produced during the Yuan dynasty auctioning for $27.7 million in London in 2005, and a porcelain cup produced during the Ming dynasty auctioning for $36.3 million in 2014. The firm, established in 1969, mainly sells helicopters to the People's Liberation Army, but also does business with firms such as Boeing, Sikorsky, and Leonardo. The firm is forecast to produce 53,400 vehicles in 2019.

Jingdezhen Refrigeration Compressor Company is well known in China for its non-Eph refrigeration compressor. It holds a 20% share of its market in China.

Agriculture

{| class="wikitable" style="float:left; text-align:right; font-size:80%; margin:1em;"

|-

| colspan="5" style="background:tan; text-align:center;"| Agricultural Economic Data of Jingdezhen (2007)

|- style="text-align:center; background:#dedebb;"

| colspan="2"|Economic Item

| Unit

| colspan="2"|Data

|- style="background:#efefcc;"

| style="text-align:left;"|Name of Items||align="left"|Statistics range||

|-

| style="background:lightskyblue; text-align:left;"| Agricultural GDP||city||RMB(yuan)||3.8 billion

|-

| style="background:yellow; text-align:left;"| Sown area of grain ||city||Mu||13.22 billion

|-

| style="background:orange; text-align:left;"| Grain output||city||ton||515,000

|-

| style="background:lightskyblue; text-align:left;"| Meat production||city||ton||47,000

|-

| style="background:yellow; text-align:left;"| Forestry production||city||RMB(yuan)||2.41 million

|-

| style="background:orange; text-align:left;"| Animal husbandry output value||city||RMB(yuan)||1.036 billion

|-

| style="background:lightskyblue; text-align:left;"| Fishery production||city||RMB(yuan)||262 million

|-

| style="background:yellow; text-align:left;"| Agricultural services industry||city||RMB(yuan)||161 million

|-

| style="background:orange; text-align:left;"| Tea output||Fuliang County||RMB(yuan)||123 million

|-

| style="background:lightskyblue; text-align:left;"| Aquaculture output||Changjiang District||RMB(yuan)||200 million

|-

| colspan="5"|Source: Jingdezhen People's Government

|}

Jingdezhen is a major agricultural center in Jiangxi, with extensive rice cultivation within its boundaries. The area is also an important producer of commodity grain, pigs, and cotton.

In Fuliang County there are some large-scale tea plantations and processing facilities. The tea of Fuliang County is well known in China. Bai Juyi, a famous poet of Tang dynasty China, wrote a poem that says "My merchant loved money more than family, he left me to go to Fuliang to buy tea last month". This suggests that one thousand years ago Fuliang was already well known for its tea. In 1915, Fuliang's "Fuhong" brand tea won a golden prize in Panama–Pacific International Exposition.

Leping City, the "Vegetable Township of South China", is a major vegetable growing and processing area for Jiangxi Province even for China. Its vegetable output and sales are important to the agricultural economy of Jiangxi Province. In 2007, Leping had 1.7 million hectares under cultivation that produced a total output of 620,000 tons. The Agriculture Ministry of China also designated Leping as a demonstration zone for "pollution-free" vegetable production.

Transportation

Jingdezhen is the most important transportation hub in the northeast region of Jiangxi province. Historically, Jingdezhen's main communication route was via the Chang River. It could ship its porcelain down the Chang to Poyang Lake and connected there with the Yangtze River in Hukou County, Jiangxi Province. From there the porcelain could get to the coast for export. Today, the city is connected to the rest of China via road, rail, and air.

Road

  • <span style="background:green; color:white;">G35</span>, running from Jinan, Shandong to Guangzhou, Guangdong,
  • <span style="background:green; color:white;">G56</span> Hangzhou-Ruili Highway from Hangzhou, Zhejiang to Ruili, Yunnan,
  • <span style="background:red; color:white; ">G206</span>, running from Yantai, Shandong to Shantou, Guangdong.

Rail

The Anhui–Jiangxi Railway connects Jingdezhen to many key cities in China such as Shanghai, Nanjing, Jinan, Qingdao, Hefei, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Nanchang, Kunming and Guiyang, etc. In addition, the Jiujiang- Jingdezhen-Quzhou Railway is under construction. In the near future, the two rail lines will intersect in Jingdezhen, and make the city an important rail transportation hub in Jiangxi Province and East China. The Jingdezhen Railway Station is located in the city center and is under the control of the Nanchang Railway Bureau.

Air

Jingdezhen Luojia Airport is located at Luojian Village, northwest of Jingdezhen city, and about from the city's downtown.

CAAC statistics show that in 2008 Jingdezhen Airport served 189,256 passengers, 81st among all Chinese airports.

There are flights from Jingdezhen to Beijing(CA), Shanghai(ZH), Guangzhou(ZH), Shenzhen(ZH), Chengdu(CA), Hangzhou(MU), Fuzhou(ZH), Kunming(MU), Xiamen(CA), Xi'an(ZH). There are no international flights. Jingdezhen Airport is the second largest airport in Jiangxi Province. The largest is at Nanchang.

Local transit

There was only one bus line in Jingdezhen before the 1980s, which was from Huang-ni-tou to Nan-men-tou with a total line distance of . In that time, the city had no taxi service and the buses were channel-type bus, it could carry more than one hundred passengers at most at the same time. This kinds of buses were renewed when they were operated to the end of 1990s.

Currently, Jingdezhen public buses and taxis are the two main means of transportation within the city. Nearly more than 20 public bus lines crisscross the city and its countryside. Taxis in Jingdezhen are plentiful; fares start at ¥8 for the first .

Education

Jingdezhen has 4 higher education institutions, 110 secondary schools, 328 primary schools, and 4 special education schools.

Public health

Jingdezhen has more than 20 medical service institutions with a total 2182 beds. Doctors and nurses number 2,672. It has the largest hospital system in the north-east of Jiangxi Province. The No.1, No.2 and No.3 People's Hospital of Jingdezhen are the most important hospitals in the city; the No.4 People's Hospital is a psychiatric hospital.

Tourism

thumb|right|500px|[[Huizhou (region)|Huizhou architecture (Anhui Province) in Yaoli town, Fuliang county]]

Travel Overview

Jingdezhen is a major tourism destination within Jiangxi Province, receiving 85.063 million tourists in 2018.

  • : Icheon, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
  • : Redbridge, London, UK
  • : Delft, South Holland, Netherlands
  • : Door County, Wisconsin, US

Domestic

  • Chaoyang District, Beijing
  • Dongcheng District, Beijing
  • Shenzhen, Guangdong

References

  • Curtis, Julia B., Stephen Little & Mary Ann Rogers, Trade taste and transformation, Jingdezhen porcelain for Japan, 1620–1645, New York, China Institute Gallery, 2006.
  • Official site of the Jingdezhen Government (Languages: English, Chinese)

Footnotes

References

  • Krahl, Regina, "Jingdezhen" Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 2 Nov. 2016. subscription required
  • Rawson, Jessica, Chinese Ornament: The Lotus and the Dragon, 1984, British Museum Publications,
  • Vainker, S.J., Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, 1991, British Museum Press,