LUNG-YEN

Pinyin Longyan, town, Fukien Province (sheng), China. Lung-yen is a county (hsien) seat and the administrative centre of Lung-yen Prefecture (ti-ch'), in the mountainous region of southwest Fukien. It is situated on a branch of the Chiu-lung Chiang (river), at the centre of a fertile agricultural basin ringed by wooded hills. A highway network connects it with Chang-chou and Amoy on the coast, Chang-p'ing and San-ming in central Fukien to the north, and the Kwangtung and Kiangsi provincial borders to the south and west. Lung-yen (Dragon Rock) was established as a county seat in 736. In the 1930s it became the centre of the short-lived Communist-type Min-hsi regime. Since 1960 Lung-yen has been joined by a branch rail line to the AmoyYing-t'an (Kiangsi) railway, which it joins at Chang-p'ing. Both Lung-yen and Chang-p'ing are centres of coal mining, with deposits of high-grade anthracite. The area around Lung-yen also has rich reserves of iron ore, as well as of manganese, tungsten, copper, lead, zinc, and molybdenum. Pop. (mid-1970s est.) 10,00050,000.