Wenzhou City, China – WMU Located City

Wenzhou is located at the middle section of the circum-Pacific 18,000-kilometer-long west coast of China, intersecting the two economic zones of the Yangtze River and the Pearl River Deltas. It is the economic, cultural and transport center of south Zhejiang Province. 

History

Wenzhou was once a famous town of the Eastern Ou(the eastern part of the Oujiang River valley) with a brilliant cultural history. In 192 BC it was the capital of the Kingdom of the Eastern Ou and AD 323 it became Yongjia Prefecture. It was also called the City of White Deer, as legend has it, when the city was being built, a white deer passed by it holding a flower in its mouth. In AD 675 it began to be called Wenzhou, its name to this day. Historically, Wenzhou has been a city renowned for its handicrafts and also as one of the birthplaces of celadon. Wenzhou’s papermaking, shipbuilding, silk, embroidery, lacquerwork, as well as its shoes and leather products, achieved a fairly eminent position in the history of China. During the period of the Southern Song Dynasty, it was opened up as a foreign trade port, enjoying a reputation as prosperous coastal city comparable to Hangzhou. Wenzhou is the hometown of Nanxi Opera or the Southern Opera. The Tale of the Pipa, written by the famous Wenzhou playwright Gao Ming in the mid-fourteenth century, has been translated into a number of foreign languages and achieved worldwide renown. Wenzhou has given birth to many outstanding people and great scholars. Among the most famous were the philosophers of the Yongjia School as represented by Ye Shi, and the poets of the River and Lake School as represented by Yongjia’s four distinguished poets during the Southern Song Dynasty, as well as Sun Yirang, Xia Nai, Xia Chengtao, Su Buqing and others of the modern era, all of whom have exerted significant influence in the history of Chinese thought, literature and science.  

Climate

Wenzhou derives its present name from its mild climate. It is a part of those subtropical maritime regions with a humid climate, noticeable for its alternating dry and monsoon periods, with distinct seasons and abundant rainfall, yet without intense heat in the summer nor bitter cold in the winter. It has an average annual temperature ranging between 1500 to 1900 mm and a frost-free period of 260 to 280 days. 

Population: 7.4619 million 

Temperature: average 18 °C (64.4 °F)