AN-SHUN

Pinyin Anshun, city, west central Kweichow Province (sheng), China. An-shun is a county-level municipality (shih) and the administrative centre of An-shun Prefecture (ti-ch'). It first became a city in 1958, later lost its municipal status, but was made a city again in 1966. An-shun is situated at the centre of various radiating highways covering the entire western part of the province, some 60 mi (100 km) west-southwest of Kuei-yang, on the main highway and railway routes between Kuei-yang and K'un-ming in Yunnan Province. It is the chief market and commercial centre for the district, acting as a collecting centre for agricultural produce and as a distribution point for manufactures from Kuei-yang. An-shun has various small-scale food-processing, oil-extracting, and agricultural-implement factories. There are considerable coal reserves in the area, supplying a large power plant at Hsan-wei to the west in Yunnan. A small steel plant was established at An-shun in 195960, being supplied with iron ore from Weng-an and Ch'ing-chen. Pop. (1958 est.) 80,000; (mid-1970s est.) 50,000100,000.