Jiaoqu 郊区

History

The district began as a government formed from the 11 production brigades of the Tonggang commune (铜港公社). From the late 1980s, boundary changes added two enclaves lying inside Anqing and Chizhou, Huihe township (灰河乡) from Wuhu, Datong town from Tongling County and three towns from eastern Zongyang, so the district today mixes several local cultures. Its towns include Datong, Laozhou (老洲镇), Chenyaohu (陈瑶湖镇), Zhoutan (周潭镇) and Tongshan (铜山镇).

What to see

Datong old town (大通古镇) has about a thousand years of history and was once a major Yangtze trading port; it is listed as a Chinese historic and cultural town and was in the first group of "characteristic towns" (中国特色小镇). Facing it across the 300-metre-wide Que River (鹊江) is Heyuezhou (和悦洲), a sandbar of about 2 square kilometres. From the end of the Taiping war until the war against Japan, Heyuezhou was Anhui's salt-distribution centre and a Yangtze steamer landing, one of the province's four great trading ports, nicknamed "Little Shanghai" and laid out in three streets and thirteen lanes. Its streets burned in May 1938; after repeated floods and the decline of river traffic it shrank to a farming village with rows of abandoned lanes. Anhui made Datong and Heyuezhou a provincial historic and cultural protection zone in 1996.

The district also contains a national nature reserve for Yangtze freshwater dolphins (长江淡水豚自然保护区).

Getting oriented

The Nanjing–Anqing high-speed railway, the Shanghai–Chongqing expressway and the Tongling–Jiujiang railway cross the district from east to west, while the Tongling Yangtze River Bridge (铜陵长江大桥) and the Beijing–Taipei expressway run north to south. Heyuezhou lies 14 kilometres from central Tongling.

Highlights

• Datong old town 大通古镇: Old Yangtze port, a Chinese historic and cultural town.
• Heyuezhou 和悦洲: Sandbar once called "Little Shanghai", burned in 1938, now a village with abandoned lanes.
• Yangtze freshwater dolphin reserve 长江淡水豚自然保护区: National-level nature reserve within the district.