Yi'an County 依安县

Setting and landscape

The farmland is black soil and chernozem; the black topsoil is more than 30 centimetres deep with about 5 per cent organic matter. Fifty-six rivers, among them the Wuyuer River (乌裕尔河) and the Shuangyang River (双阳河), and ten reservoirs lie in the county. Sunshine totals 2,711.8 hours a year.

History

The name joins the first and last characters of Ikemingan (依克明安), a Qing banner. Yi'an was set up as an administrative bureau on 23 October 1923 with its seat at Longquan (龙泉镇), and became a county in January 1929. In 1941 the county office moved north to Tai'an (泰安), today's Yi'an town, on the north bank of the Wuyuer River and on the Qiqihar–Bei'an railway. The county was called Tai'an County from October 1947 and took back the name Yi'an in June 1952.

The astronaut Liu Boming (刘伯明) was born in 1966 in what is now Dongsheng village (东升村) in Hongxing township (红星乡). He flew on Shenzhou 7 (神舟七号) in September 2008 and worked alongside Zhai Zhigang (翟志刚) to carry out the mission's spacewalk.

Food and local products

The county holds the titles of China's home of white geese, of purple-flowered oily beans (紫花油豆角), and of five-coloured clay, called "northern purple sand" (北方紫砂). Goose rearing goes back a century and carries a national geographical indication brand. Yi'an is also China's home of guan fangfeng (关防风), a medicinal herb, and Hongxing township became a provincial herb-growing town in 2019. The county's ceramics park, which the county government describes as the only one in Heilongjiang, makes building, household and art porcelain. Fields produce soybeans, maize, rice, sugar beet, flax and potatoes.

Highlights

• White geese 白鹅: A century of goose rearing; the county is China's home of white geese.
• Purple-flowered oily beans 紫花油豆角: The county is China's home of this bean.
• Five-coloured clay 五色土: Known as northern purple sand; the county is China's home of five-coloured clay.
• Wuyuer River 乌裕尔河: Yi'an town stands on its north bank.