Dandong is a prefecture-level city in the southeastern part of Liaoning Province. It faces Xinyizhou City of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea across the river in the east, the Yellow Sea in the south, Anshan in the west, Dalian in the southwest and Benxi in the north. Geographical coordinates range from 123°22′ to 125°42′ in the east longitude and 39°43′ to41°09′in the north latitude. The largest distance between East and West is 196 kilometers and the largest vertical distance between North and south is 160 kilometers. The coastline is 126 kilometers long and the total area is 15,222 square kilometers.The population is 2.34 million.
History
Dandong is a city with long history. After a series of historical change, it always showed its strength and power. From November 1950 to February 1951, Dandong’s Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge was bombed by the United States during the Korean War. Envn though the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge was rebuilt, the remains of the Japanese-built iron bridge was left and now serve as a war monument. On 20 January 1965, the city adopted its present name of Dandong which means “red east”. Recently, the city has been gaining influence in this region of China because of its market with North Korea and the government’s future plans to develop the city into a special “Border Economic Cooperation Zone”for export and import in order to expand the country’s ability to conduct trade. In 2001, Dandong was granted the “Best Tourism City” award by the National Tourism Administration. Four years later, the same administration granted it the award of “National Clean City”
Economy
In 2016, Dandong achieved a GDP of 74.84 billion yuan, and its total economic output rose one place, ranking the ninth in the province. In terms of comparable prices, it fell by 2.2% compared with 2015, ranking the third in the province in terms of growth rate. Among them, the added value of the primary industry was 12.78 billion yuan, down 13.1%; the added value of the secondary industry was 22.93 billion yuan, down 1.8%; and the added value of the tertiary industry was 39.13 billion yuan, up 1.8%. The proportion of added value of the three industries to GDP is 17.1:30.6:52.3. Annual GDP per capita is 31107.6 yuan, which is 2.6% lower than that in 2015 at comparable prices.
Infrastructure
Railways
Trains from Dandong to Shenyang are available several times a day with night trains to Beijing, Dalian, Changchun, Qingdao and Shanghai. From Dalian, the high speed train takes less than 3 hours, or from Beijing around 7 hours. Requiring visas, it is also possible to take the train to Pyongyang, North Korea and Moscow.
Road
From the long-distance bus station, it takes about 10 hours to get to Beijing, four hours to Dalian and Tonghua, and three hours to Shenyang.
Air
Flights to and from Dandong Airport are limited, but one can always fly in/out of Dalian or Shenyang and then take the train or bus to/from Dandong. The airport is located 13 miles west of town and an airport shuttle is available. Domestic flights are available to Beijing, Qingdao, Sanya, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Ports and waterways
The Port of Dandong is located on the right bank at the mouth of the Yalu River. It is bordered by the Yellow Sea in the south and is separated from the North Korea in the east. It was set up as a trading port in 1907. Since large-scale construction began in the mid-1980s, the Port, together with the ports at Dalian and Yingkou, has become an important distributing centre in northeast China.
Geographical Location and Pleasant Climate
Dandong area is a part of mountainous and hilly areas in eastern Liaoning Province, which belongs to the branch or residual vein of Changbai Mountains extending southwest. The terrain gradually decreased from northeast to southwest. According to the height and topographic characteristics, it can be divided into three types of large-scale geomorphic units, such as the middle and low mountain areas in the north, hilly areas in the South and coastal plain areas in the South margin. Among them, mountainous and hilly areas are dominant, while terraces, basins, platforms and other small geomorphic units are locally present.Dandong City is a hilly area with high topography in the north and low topography in the south. Mountain and hilly areas account for 72.4%, plain and valley areas account for 14.6%, with water areas accounting for 8.7% and other areas accounting for 4.3%.
Dandong is located in the mid-latitude zone of the east coast of Eurasia and belongs to the humid monsoon climate of warm temperate zone. The annual average rainfall is between 800-1200 mm. It is the area with the largest rainfall in northern China. 2/3 of the precipitation is concentrated in summer.The annual average temperature is 8°C-9°C(46.4°F-48.2 °F) in the South and 6°C-7°C(42.8°F-44.6°F) in the north.
Tourist Attractions
Dandong's tourism resources cover an area of 1500 square kilometers, accounting for 10% of Dandong's territorial area, among which, rivers, lakes, seas, mountains, springs, forests, islands and other natural landscape develops into several tourist scenic spots, nature reserves and forest parks ,which are all national and provincial level or above. The Yalu River, the boundary river between China and Korea, flows 210 kilometers through Dandong, along which six scenic region and more than 100 scenic spots constitute a unique border picture along the Yalu River. As a national franchised tourist city to Korea, Dandong relies on Yalu River, Hushan Great Wall, Fenghuangshan, Wulong Mountain, Tianhua Mountain, Huangyi Mountain, Dagu Mountain, Tianqiaogou, Qingshan Valley, Pushi River, Yulong Lake, Dalu Island, Swertia Island and other scenic spots. Dandong ,Shenyang and Dalian form the "golden triangle" of Liaoning tourism
Population：2.34 million
Temperature:average 8°C-9°C(46.4°F-48.2 °F) in the South
average 6°C-7°C(42.8°F-44.6°F) in the north.