Qidong 启东市

History

Qidong is built of Yangtze sediment, and its coastline has moved back and forth. Chinese Wikipedia records that the area was open sea before the Han; in the early Tang two sandbanks rose and merged, and in the Five Dynasties a Haimen County (海门县) was seated near today's Lüsi (吕四). From the late Yuan to the Kangxi reign most of this land returned to the sea, leaving only the Lüsi area. From the mid-18th century more than ten new sandbanks formed in the south, known as the 'outer sands of Chongming', and joined up by the early Republic. In March 1928 the northern, central and southern parts were combined as Qidong County, a name taken from the phrase 'open up our eastern frontier' (启吾东疆). It became a city in 1989.

The two halves still speak differently: the south uses Shadi speech (沙地话), a Wu dialect close to that of Haimen and Chongming, while Lüsi in the north speaks Tongdong (通东话).

What to see

China Tourism News describes Yuantuojiao (圆陀角), a horn-shaped point pushing into the meeting of river and sea, as the first place in Jiangsu to see the sunrise. The resort there includes the Golden Beach (黄金海滩), where visitors dig for clams, and tulip fields each spring. The paper also names Lüsi port (吕四港), called a thousand-year-old town, and the Tonghai Land Reclamation Company (通海垦牧公司), founded by the industrialist Zhang Jian (张謇) to turn Yellow Sea mudflats into cotton land for his mills and rebuilt on its original site in July 2021. Qidong also has a printmaking museum (启东版画博物馆).

Food and local products

China Tourism News lists the Lüsi fishing ground (吕四渔场) among China's four great fishing grounds, with pomfret, yellow croaker, hairtail, prawns, swimming crab and jellyfish from the southern Yellow Sea. On land, Chinese Wikipedia names Sanhuang chicken (三黄鸡), named for its yellow beak, feet, skin and feathers and served as white-cut chicken or in whole-chicken soup, and sweet sorghum (甜芦粟), grown for its juicy stems and already recorded in the Zhengde-era gazetteer of Chongming.

Highlights

• Yuantuojiao 圆陀角: Horn-shaped point at the meeting of the Yangtze and the sea; described by China Tourism News as Jiangsu's first place to see sunrise.
• Tonghai Land Reclamation Company 通海垦牧公司: Zhang Jian's reclamation company on the Yellow Sea mudflats, rebuilt on its original site in July 2021.
• Lüsi port 吕四港: Described by China Tourism News as a thousand-year-old town.
• Sanhuang chicken 三黄鸡: Local chicken named for its yellow beak, feet, skin and feathers.