SHUANG-YA-SHAN

Pinyin Shuangyashan, city, Heilungkiang sheng (province), China. Shuang-ya-shan, also known as Chien-shan, is a new city that has grown up since 1949; its importance is based entirely on coal production. The Shuang-ya-shan coalfield, on the northern slopes of the Wan-ta Mountains, covers an area of 115 square miles (300 square km) and has estimated reserves of 160,000,000 tons of high-quality coal. Almost the entire population of the city depends on the coal industry. Most of the coal mined is transported by rail to the steelworks at An-shan in Liaoning province and to other industrial centres in the Manchurian (Northeast) region. In less than a decade in the 1950s, the city grew from nothing until it had a population of more than 100,000. By the early 1970s there had been some development of local industry, including the establishment of sawmills and food-processing plants, but it remains essentially a single-industry mining city. Pop. (1990) 386,081.