Bowang District 博望区

History

When the Qin introduced commanderies and counties in 221 BC, the seat of Danyang county was set at what is now Danyang town, and the town was also once the seat of the old Danyang commandery (丹阳郡). Early in the Tang Zhenguan reign the county was abolished and Danyang became a town. In the Kangxi reign of the Qing it was divided in two: the northern half is now Hengxi Subdistrict (横溪街道) in Jiangning, Jiangsu, and the southern half is the Anhui town.

The name Bowang arrived with migrants. After the collapse of the Western Jin, northern families who fled south named their new homes after the places they had left, and migrants from Nanyang commandery (南阳郡) in Henan founded Bowang and Huyang (湖阳) counties at the foot of Hengshan (横山).

Dialect and crafts

People in Bowang speak a Wu dialect of the Xuanzhou group, and a 2005 study of the dialects of old Dangtu groups Bowang and Huyang into a lakeside zone along Shijiu Lake (石臼湖), the zone with the strongest Wu character, where communication with people from elsewhere in the county is very difficult. Bowang is known as a home of blades: before the reform era many families worked iron, and the town was famous for its "three knives" (博望三刀): the kitchen cleaver, scissors and the sickle.

Within the Dangtu folk-song tradition (当涂民歌), the Bowang, Huyang and Xinshi area has its own forms: boat songs, fishing songs and lantern songs.

Highlights

• Danyang town 丹阳镇: Seat of Danyang county from 221 BC and later of the old Danyang commandery.
• Bowang three knives 博望三刀: Kitchen cleavers, scissors and sickles made by Bowang ironworkers.