Nanhe District 南和区

History

The old name of the area is Heyang (和阳), and the district seat is Heyang Town (和阳镇). Nanhe County was set up in 202 BC, early in the Western Han, under Julu commandery (钜鹿郡). In 1262, under the Yuan, Xingzhou (邢州) was raised to Shunde prefecture (顺德府), and Nanhe stayed one of its counties through the Ming and Qing.

The district government calls Nanhe the "home of Guanyin and home town of Song Jing" (观音之乡、宋璟故里). Song Jing (宋璟) was the Tang chancellor who served five emperors and is credited with helping to build the Kaiyuan golden age. The district government also names Shi Kuang (师旷), the pre-Qin music master named as the author of the zither pieces "Yangchun" and "Baixue", the Ming censor Zhu Zhengse (朱正色), who worked on the Yellow River and put down a revolt in Ningxia, and the modern painter and calligrapher Bai Shouzhang (白寿章). The actor Wang Baoqiang (王宝强) is on the same list.

What to see

Old sites in Nanhe include a group of Han tombs, a Northern Qi stele carved with images, a Sui-dynasty stele for the stone bridge over the Li River (澧水石桥碑) and the Baique'an temple (白雀庵). The district government counts six rated scenic areas, one at national 4A level and five at 3A, and says it has laid out five cycling routes.

Food and local products

Nanhe is a traditional farming county known as the "granary south of the capital" (畿南粮仓). Its food industry includes Jinshahe (金沙河), whose dried noodles are produced here; the company was named in the first group of Hebei time-honoured brands. Pet food is another large industry, and the district has held the China Nanhe Pet Industry Expo seven times.

Getting oriented

The Beijing–Hong Kong–Macau, Dongying–Lüliang, Xingtai–Hengshui and Daqing–Guangzhou expressways cross the district, as do the Beijing–Guangzhou railway, the Beijing–Guangzhou high-speed line and the Handan–Huanghua railway, whose Xingtai South station is the centre of Nanhe's multimodal freight system.