HUAI-AN

Pinyin Huai'an, also spelled Hwaian, city and river port in northern Kiangsu sheng (province), China. Huai-an is a water-transport focus, being situated where the Grand Canal crosses the Su-pei Canal. The city is also on the highway between Suchow in northwest Kiangsu and Yang-chou in southern Kiangsu. In former times Huai-an was a city of considerable importance. Until the 12th century the Huai River flowed to the sea some miles to the north, and the city was served by the section of the Grand Canal between the Huai River and the Yangtze River. A county (hsien) had been established there in the 2nd century BC; in the early 4th century it became the administrative seat of a commandery (district controlled by a commander) and was walled. In 593, under the Sui dynasty (581618), it received the name Ch'u prefecture (chou), by which it was known until the 12th century. With the completion of the New Pien Canal in 607, it became a city of major economic importance as a canal port on the route by which grain was sent from the Yangtze northwest to the capital cities of Sian (Hsi-an [Ch'ang-an]) in Shensi province and Lo-yang in Honan province. The city also functioned as a collecting centre for tax grain from the rich rice-growing lands of the Huai River plain, as a centre of the salt industry in coastal Kiangsu, and as a major seaport, the shipping of which was mostly engaged in the northern coastal traffic to Korea and Japan. During the 7th to 9th centuries it had a considerable foreign merchant community, including many Koreans. When the locality fell to the Chin (Juchen) in the early 12th century, the city's role was changed to that of a major strategic centre in the frontier confrontation between the Sung dynasty (9601127) and the Chin regime. At this time it first received the name Huai-an (meaning the Huai pacified). With the revival of the grain-transport system under the Yan, or Mongol, dynasty (12061368) and subsequently under the Ming dynasty (13681644), Huai-an became a transport centre of immense importance, the site of vast granaries, and a centre of the transport administration. Although a change of course of the Huang Ho in 1194 had blocked the mouth of the Huai River, robbing Huai-an of its role as a seaport, the town grew rapidly. In 1560 both the old city and the newer settlement, which had grown up since the 14th century, were surrounded by strong fortifications. Throughout the Ming dynasty and Ch'ing dynasty (16441911/12) it remained a superior prefecture named Huai-an, but its importance declined after the mid-19th century, when the Grand Canal gradually fell into decay. Huai-an, however, retained a provincial role as a transport centre and as a collecting centre for agricultural produce, above all, of rice from the Huai River valley. In 1912 it ceased to be a superior prefecture. Since 1949 Huai-an has revived considerably, owing to the completion of the Su-pei-kuan-kai-tsung Canal (which once again gives medium-sized shipping direct access to the sea) and to the restoration of the northern sections of the Grand Canal system. Pop. (1990 est.) 131,149.