1. Brief Introduction
Tongliao is a prefecture-level city known as the “Pearl in the Grassland” in the eastern part of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. The area is 59,535 square kilometers, accounting for 5.4% of Inner Mongolia's total, and population is 3,139,153; the city proper has 898,895 inhabitants. The city was the administrative center of the defunct Jirem League. The original Mongolian name for Tongliao city proper is Bayisingtu, while the original name of the prefecture-level city is Jirem. The Mongolian dialect spoken in this area is Khorchin Mongolian.
2. Economy
The regional GDP reaches 181.182 billion CNY in 2013, realizing an increase of 9.7% over the previous year according to comparable prices, which is higher than the region's 0.7 percentage points. Among them, the first industrial added value is 25.744 billion CNY, an increase of 6.7%; the second industry added value reaches 112.24 billion CNY, an increase of 11.2%; the third industry added value is 43.198 billion CNY, up by 7.2%. The industrial structure of the three industries was adjusted from 13.863.123.1 in 2012 to 14.262.023.8. Compared with the previous year, the proportion of the second industry reduced 1.1 percentage points, the proportion of primary industry and tertiary industry were increased by 0.4 and 0.7 percentage points. Based on permanent resident population, per capita GDP reaches 57902.27 CNY, up 9.8%.
3. Education
Inner Mongolia University for the Nationalities and Inner Mongolia College of Farming and Animal Husbandry are among the educational institutions of Tongliao.
4. Transportation
Tongliao has convenient traffic facilities. It covers 6 railways and 8 highways with Jilin Province connected in the east of the city and Liaoning Province bordered on the south of it. The scheduled flight can reach some metropolises such as Beijing, Hohhot and Shanghai directly. It is 680 km far away from Beijing, 270 km away from Shenyang, 310 km away from Changchun and 700 km from Dalian. There are also rails connect Tongliao with Daqing and Jining. State Highway 111, State Highway 303, State Highway 304 and State Highway 204 run through the city and extend to harbor cities such as Tianjin, Dalian, and Qinhuangdao.
5. Climate
It borders Jilin province to the east, Liaoning to the south, Chifeng to the southwest, the Xilin Gol League to the west, and the Hinggan League to the north. Not far from Tongliao are silica sands. Tongliao has a four-season, monsoon-influenced, continental steppe climate, with long, cold, windy, but dry winters, and hot, humid summers. Monthly mean temperatures range from −13.5 °C (7.7 °F) in January to 24.1 °C (75.4 °F) in July, with an annual mean of 6.63 °C (43.9 °F). Much of the year's rainfall occurs from June to August, and even then dry and sunny weather dominates in the city. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 57% in July to 78% in January, sunshine is abundant year-round, with 3,054 hours of bright sunshine annually.
6. Tourist Attractions
Known as the “Pearl in the Grassland”, Tongliao has very beautiful natural scenery on the prairie and historical culture, which make the city’s significant tourist resources. Famous scenic spots include Chennai Palace in the Qing Dynasty, Daqinggou, Xiaozhuang Garden Tourism, Zarud Grassland Tourist Area, Tejinhan Mountain and Zhurihe Prairie. These popular scenic spots attract lot of tourists every year, especially the vast prairies.
Population: 3.14 million
Temperature: average 6.63 °C(43.9 °F)
