SHIH-CHIA-CHUANG

Pinyin Shijiazhuang city in west-central Hopeh sheng (province), China. It is the administrative capital of Hopeh province. It stands on the edge of the North China Plain at the foot of the T'ai-hang Mountains, which lie to the west. The city stands south of the Hu-t'o River. In pre-Han times (i.e., before 206 BC) it was the site of the city of Shih-i in the state of Chao, and, from Han (206 BCAD 220) to Sui (581618) times, it was the site of a county town with the same name. With the reorganization of local government in the early period of the T'ang dynasty (618907), the county was abolished. Shih-chia-chuang then became little more than a local market town, subordinated to the flourishing city of Chen-ting (modern Cheng-ting) a few miles to the north. The growth of Shih-chia-chuang into one of China's major cities began in 1905, when the PekingWu-han (Han-k'ou) railway reached the area, stimulating much new trade and encouraging local farmers to grow cash crops. Two years later the town became the junction for the new Shih-t'ai line, running from Shih-chia-chuang to T'ai-yan in central Shansi province. This connection immediately transformed the town from a local collecting centre and market into a communications centre of national importance on the main route from Peking and Tientsin to Shansi andlater, when the railway from T'ai-yan was extended to the southwestto Shensi province as well. The city also became the centre of an extensive road network. During the pre-World War II period, Shih-chia-chuang was a large railway town as well as a commercial and collecting centre for Shansi and the regions farther west and for the agricultural produce of the North China Plain, particularly for grain, tobacco, and cotton. By 1935 it had far outstripped Cheng-ting as an economic centre. At the end of World War II the character of the city changed once again. Not only did it assume an administrative role as the preeminent city in western Hopeh but it also developed into an industrial city. Some industry, such as match manufacturing, tobacco processing, and glassmaking, had already been established before the war. Only after 1949, however, did the planned industrialization of the city gather momentum. Its population more than trebled in the decade 194858. In the 1950s the city experienced a major expansion in the textile industry, with large-scale cotton spinning, weaving, printing, and dyeing works. In addition, there are various plants processing local farm produce. In the 1960s it was also the site of a new chemical industry, with plants producing fertilizer and caustic soda. Shih-chia-chuang also became an engineering base, with a tractor-accessory plant. There are important coal deposits at Ching-hsing and Huo-lu, a few miles to the west in the foothills of the T'ai-hang Mountains, which provide fuel for a thermal-generating plant supplying power to local industries. The city's role as a transport centre has been supplemented by the construction of an airport handling regular domestic flights. Pop. (1990) 1,068,439.