CH'ANG-CHOU

Pinyin Changzhou city in southern Kiangsu Province (sheng), China. It was a part of the commandery (a district under the control of a commander) of K'uai-chi under the Ch'in (221206 BC) and Han (206 BCAD 220) dynasties and, after AD 129, a part of Wu Commandery (chn). It first became an independent administrative unit under the Chin (Western Chin) in AD 280290, when it became the seat of Pi-ling Commandery (chn), renamed Chin-ling Commandery in 304. It was given the name Ch'ang Prefecture (chou) under the Sui dynasty (581618) in 589. After 609, with the completion of the southern section of the Grand Canal, it became a canal port and transshipment point for grain produced in the area. At the end of the Sui it was the centre of a rebel regime led by Li Tzu-t'ung, suppressed in 621. During the Five Dynasties (907960) it formed part first of the Wu kingdom and then of the Southern T'ang, and it continued to prosper. In Sung (9601279) and Yan (12791368) times it was a rich and flourishing centre of commerce. After 1368 it was for a while renamed Ch'ang-ch'un Prefecture (fu), but it then became the superior prefecture of Ch'ang-chou, subordinated to the government of Nanking (Nan-ching). In 1912 the prefecture was reduced to a county (hsien) for some years and took the name Wu-chin, but it continued to be known colloquially as Ch'ang-chou. The city has thus retained the name for 14 centuries. Ch'ang-chou's traditional role has been that of a commercial centre, particularly a collecting centre for agricultural produce, which was shipped by canal to the north and, later, to Shanghai. It began to develop a cotton textile industry in the 1920s, and cotton mills were established in the late 1930s, when Japanese pressures drove many Chinese businesses to invest outside Shanghai. It has remained a textile centre, the most important in Kiangsu for weaving. It also has large food-processing plants and flour-milling, rice-polishing, and oil-pressing industries. After 1949 it also developed as a centre of engineering industry. Ch'i-shu-yen, some 6 mi (10 km) southeast of Ch'ang-chou, has one of the largest locomotive and rolling stock plants in China. Other engineering works in Ch'ang-chou produce diesel engines, generators, transformers, and agricultural and textile machinery. At the time of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 a steel plant was also built there to provide raw material for heavy industry. Since 1908, Ch'ang-chou has been linked by rail with Shanghai and Nanking. Pop. (1989 est.) 501,700.