HO-FEI

formerly (until 1912) Lu-chou, Pinyin Hefei, or Luzhou, city in central Anhwei sheng (province), China. It has been the provincial capital since 1949. Ho-fei is a natural centre of communications, being situated to the north of Ch'ao Lake and standing on a low saddle crossing the northeastern extension of the Ta-pieh Mountains, which form the divide between the Huai and Yangtze rivers. From Ho-fei there is easy water transport via the lake to the Yangtze River opposite Wu-hu. Important land routes run through Ho-feieast-west from P'u-k'ou (opposite Nanking in Kiangsu) to Sian (in Shensi) and north-south from Suchow (in Kiangsu) and Pang-pu to An-ch'ing (both in Anhwei). From the 8th to the 6th century BC, Ho-fei was the site of the small state of Shu, later a part of the Ch'u kingdom. Many archaeological finds dating from this period have been made. The name Ho-fei was first given to the county set up in the area under the Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC. During the 4th to the 6th century AD, this crucial border region between northern and southern states was much fought over; its name and administrative status were consequently often changed. During the Sui (581618) and T'ang (618907) periods, it became the seat of Lu prefecturea title it kept until the 15th century, when it became a superior prefecture named Lu-chou. The present city dates from the Sung dynasty (9601126), the earlier Ho-fei having been some distance farther north. During the 10th century, it was for a while the capital of the independent Wu kingdom (902938) and was an important centre of the Southern T'ang state (937975). After 1127 it became a centre of the defenses of the Southern Sung dynasty (11261279) against the Chin (Juchen) invaders, as well as a flourishing centre of trade between the two states. When the Chinese republic was founded in 1911, the superior prefecture was abolished, and the city took the name of Ho-fei. Before World War II, Ho-fei remained essentially an administrative centre and the regional market for the fertile plain to the south. It was a collecting centre for grain, beans, cotton, and hemp, as well as a centre for handicraft industries manufacturing cloth, leather, bamboo goods, and ironware. The construction in 1912 of the TientsinP'u-k'ou railway, farther east, for a while made Ho-fei a provincial backwater, and much of its importance passed to Pang-pu. In 193236, however, a Chinese company built a railway linking Ho-fei with Y-ch'i-k'ou (on the Yangtze opposite Wu-hu) to the southeast and with the Huai River at Huai-nan to the north. While this railway was built primarily to exploit the rich coalfield in northern Anhwei, it also did much to revive the economy of the Ho-fei area by taking much of its produce to Wu-hu and Nanking. Although Ho-fei was a town of only about 30,000 in the mid-1930s, its population grew more than tenfold in the following 20 years. The city's administrative role was strengthened by the transfer of the provincial government from An-ch'ing in 1949, but much of its new growth derived from its development as an industrial city. A cotton mill was opened in 1958, and a thermal generating plant, using coal from Huai-nan, was established in the early 1950s. It also became the seat of an industry producing industrial chemicals and chemical fertilizers. In the late 1950s an iron and steel complex was built. In addition to a machine-tool works and engineering and agricultural machinery factories, the city has developed an aluminum industry and a variety of light industries. There are two universities in the city. Pop. (1989 est.) 692,400.