NING-PO

also called Yin-hsien, Pinyin Ningbo, or Yinxian, city in the coastal plain of northeastern Chekiang sheng (province), China. Ning-po (Calm Waves) is situated on the Yung River, some 16 miles (25 km) upstream from its mouth, at the junction with its chief western tributary, the Yu-yao. Ning-po was from an early period itself a port, although the mouth of the river was masked by a mud bar. It has an outport on the western bank of the estuary, called Chen-hai, which originally had been a fishing port. After Kou-chang hsien (county), a few miles to the east, was transferred to what is now Ning-po in 625, it became the seat of an independent chou (prefecture), Ming, in 738. In 908 the county seat's name, Mao-hsien since 625, was changed to Yin-hsien, which it has since retained. Under the Southern Sung (11261279), Ming chou was promoted in 1198 to a fu (superior prefecture), Ch'ing-yuan. It kept this name through the Yan (Mongol) period (12061368). In 1368 it became Ning-po fu, which name it kept until 1912, when it was demoted to county status, taking the formal name of Yin-hsien. Ning-po first rose to importance during the latter part of the 5th century, when Korean shipping found it the most convenient port for contacts with the southern capital at Nanking (Nan-ching; then called Chien-k'ang). Under the T'ang (618907) this traffic continued. Although official relations lapsed after 838, private trade continued on a large scale. In the 11th century Ning-po became a centre of the coastal trade. Its importance grew with the establishment of the Southern Sung capital at Hang-chou in 1127, when overseas trade to and from the capital flowed through Ning-po. It grew rapidly during the Sung (9601279) and Yan periods. The early period of the Ming dynasty (13681644) brought a setback to Ning-po's development. Overseas trade was deliberately curtailed by the government and the building of oceangoing ships prohibited, and even coastal trade was severely restricted. Ning-po was attacked by Japanese pirates, and it became a defensive base of some importance. Its growth seems to have stagnated, however, until the last quarter of the 15th century, when the rural prosperity of its hinterland began to recover. This recovery was assisted when the Portuguese began trading in Ning-po in 1545, at first illicitly, but later (after 1567) legally. Still later, Dutch and British merchants arrived, and the Ning-po merchants began to trade with the China coast from Manchuria to Canton, as well as with the Philippines and Taiwan. Ning-po was the commercial centre of the coastal plain to the east of Shao-hsing and an outport for the Yangtze River Delta area, to which it was linked by the Che-tung Canal leading to Shao-hsing and the Ch'ien-t'ang River. As a result, in the 17th and 18th centuries the Ning-po merchants became important in China's internal commerce and began to play a national role as bankers in the early 19th century. In 1843 Ning-po was opened to foreign trade as a treaty port, but trade declined, and its place was taken by Shanghai. Modern Ning-po is a local commercial centre and a busy port for northeastern Chekiang. Steamships of 3,000 tons can use the port, and there are regular steamer services to Shanghai. A large passenger terminal was built in 1979. A separate new port, Pei-lun, nearby was designed to be one of China's largest transfer docks and a centre for the import of Australian iron ore. There is a rail link with Shanghai via Hang-chou, and Ning-po is also the centre of a transportation network of coastal junk traffic, canals, and roads. It is a collection centre for cotton and other agricultural produce of the plain, for the marine products of the local fishing industry, and for timber from the mountains in the hinterland and is a major distribution centre for coal, oil, textiles, and consumer goods. In 1984 Ning-po was designated one of China's open cities in the new open-door policy inviting foreign investment. Cotton-spinning mills, flour mills, textile plants, and tobacco factories were established before World War II, and from 1949 industrialization continued. The textile industry has expanded with new textile plants, knitting factories, dyeing plants, and yarn-spinning mills. Food processingflour milling, rice polishing, oil extraction, wine making, and particularly the canning of foodstuffshas become a large-scale industry. In addition, Ning-po supports a number of manufacturing concerns. A large shipbuilding industry constructs fishing vessels. Factories produce diesel engines, agricultural and other machinery, generators, machine tools, and petrochemicals. The oldest library building in China, T'ien-i Ko, is in the western part of the city. Its collection of rare books and documents goes back to the 11th century and includes many unique local chronicles of the Ming dynasty. Pop. (1985 est.) city centre, 422,000; city, 615,600; city and administratively attached counties, 4,841,900.