Guilin Introduction
Guilin is a city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and it is the third largest city in Guangxi. The name of Guilin is originated in the Qin Dynasty(221BC-207BC) which set Guilin prefecture and it has the meaning of a forest of osmanthus fragrans, and Guilin has an abbreviated name as “Gui”. Guilin is a tourism city, and is famous for its beautiful natural scenery home and abroad, and it is in the junction of the pan Pearl River delta economic zone, southwest economic zone and ASEAN economic zone.
Administrative Division
Its administrative region is divided to six districts, nine counties, two autonomous counties, 83 towns, 51 townships and 15 nationality townships. The six districts are Xiufeng, Diecai, Qixing, Xiangshan, Yanshan and Lingui. The nine counties are Lingchuan, Xing'an, Quanzhou, Guanyang, Ziyuan, Yongfu, Yangshuo, Lipu, and Pingle county. The two autonomous counties are Longsheng various nationalities autonomous county and Gongcheng Yao autonomous county.
Geography
Guilin is in the northeast of Guangxi, borders on Hunan province in the northeast, and adjacent to Hezhou in the southeast, Wuzhou and Laibin in the south and Liuzhou in the west. It situates in the southwest of Lingnan mountain system, and has a terrain of low mountains and hills and landscapes of Karst mountain, hill and tableland. Guilin has the typical karst landform, and it is in a karst basin extending from northwest to southeast, low in the center and high in the two sides.
Guilin is in a low northern latitude from 24°15'23″to 26°23'30″, and has a climate of subtropical monsoon. It has four distinct seasons, a long summer and a short winter. In the whole year, it is mild and has sufficient sunshine with an average annual sunshine duration of 1,670 hours, and has an average annual temperature of 18.9℃. August is the hottest month with an average temperature of 23℃, and January is the coldest month wit an average temperature of 15.6℃. And it has abundant rainfall with an average annual rainfall of 1,949.5 millimeters and an average annual relative humidity of 73%-79%.
Guilin has plentiful rivers. It has five big rivers: Li River, Xiang River, Luoqing River, Xunjiang river and Zijiang river, and 65 rivers having a water collection area of over 100 square kilometer. It has an average annual total water volume of about 40 billion cubic meters, and a rich hydro-power resource due to big river falls.
Natural Resource
Guilin has enormous mineral resources. It has over 40 kinds of minerals like hematite, pyrite, limonite, and lead ore, and over 30 kinds of minerals proven in reserve. 17 kinds of mineral are in great reserve, like marble, granite, talc and limestone. Guilin has 1593 kinds of animals, and has over 400 kinds of terrestrial vertebrates and 144 kinds of aquatic animals like giant salamander and eel among those animals. It has over 1000 kinds of plant, like silver fir, and a forest area of about 1.21 million hectares.
Population and Ethnic Group
According to statistics in 2016, Guilin has a permanent resident population of about 5.0 million, an urban population of 2.38 million, and a rural population of 2.62 million, and it has an urbanization rate of 47.61%. Guilin has over ten ethnic minorities, like the Zhuang, Yan, Hui, and Miao, and the population of ethnic minorities is about 730 thousand.
Economy
Guilin has a GDP of about 204.5 billion yuan in 2017. In the first industry, its main agricultural crops and commercial crops are rice, orange, tangerine, momordica grosvenori (luo han guo), ginkgo nut, cumquat, Chinese chestnut and so on. Its second industry has main branches like micro-electronics, medicine and rubber processing. In the third industry, Guilin has a mature catering service and tourism. Guilin is a tourism city, and it has a developed tourism with various and convenient supporting facilities and a well-run sale industry. Though it is a third-tier city, Guilin has several universities, like Guangxi Normal University, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin University of Technology and Guilin Medical University.
City Flower
The city flower of Guilin is osmanthus fragans, which is widely planted in the whole Guilin, especially in the two sides of streets. Osmanthus fragans has four varities, which are divided from the color of its flower. One kind of osmanthus fragans would blossom fours times respectively in four seasons. The flowering phase of osmanthus fragans is in September and October. In this period, Guilin is in golden color, and a fragrant smell spreads everywhere. Its flower has many uses, and it can be used to drink like tea, and can be made to dessert, cake and snack, and can be made to wine and perfume and its bark can be made to spice.
