YANG-CH'AN

Pinyin Yangquan, city, eastern Shansi Province (sheng), China. It is a prefecture-level municipality (shih) entirely surrounded by Chin-chung Prefecture (ti-ch'). Yang-ch'an is located in the mountains of Shansi, west of the main range of the T'ai-hang Shan (mountains), at the eastern end of the route through the mountains via Niang-tzu Kuan (pass). Its site was of major strategic importance throughout history, commanding one of the main routes from the North China Plain to Shansi and the Northwest. Yang-ch'an itself, however, was only an insignificant mountain village, subordinate to the nearby town of P'ing-ting until the 20th century. It was first opened up by the construction of the railway from Shih-chia-chuang in Hopeh Province to T'ai-yan in Shansi. Yang-ch'an then became a railway centre, as well as a key road junction on the eastwest highway via the Niang-tzu Kuan, being also linked to the northsouth route to the valleys of southeastern Shansi. With the coming of the railway, Yang-ch'an, located in the heart of the rich Shansi coalfield, also became an important mining centre, producing both coking coal and anthracite. Much of the coal is used for generating power, both locally and in T'ai-yan. It also supplied the Lung-yen steelworks at Hsan-hua, northwest of Peking in Hopeh. Yen Hsi-shan, provincial warlord of Shansi in the first half of the 20th century, established an ironworks at Yang-ch'an. This formed the base of a local munitions industry and was one of the few ironworks that continued in production through the depressed years of the late 1920s and 1930s. Since 1949, prospecting has revealed rich deposits of anthracite, iron ore, iron pyrites, and refractory clays in the vicinity. Yang-ch'an has grown into an important iron smelting centre, mainly producing pig iron for steelworks in T'ai-yan and in Tientsin. Pop. (1980 UN est.) 376,000.