Anshan

Anshan occupies a quiet corner of central-southeast Liaoning, some ninety‑odd kilometres due south of Shenyang. The city’s name—literally “saddle mountain”—derives from the low peak to its south that, in the waning light, resembles the curve of a horse’s saddle. That gentle bulge of rock has stood witness to centuries of conflict and commerce, and today it presides over a municipality of some 3.3 million souls spread across 9,270 square kilometres, making Anshan Liaoning’s third‑largest city by population.

Stretching nearly 133 kilometres from east to west, Anshan bridges the flat Liao River plains and the rising contours of the Qian Mountains. The western and central reaches are wide, fertile expanses—more than 24,000 hectares of arable land—where fields of vegetables and the celebrated Nanguo pear flourish under the temperate sun. To the southeast, hills give way to jagged ridges and forested slopes that form Qianshan National Park, a 44‑square‑kilometre preserve of Taoist and Buddhist sanctuaries.

Beneath its soil, Anshan harbours immense mineral wealth. Iron ore deposits feed the city’s massive steel complex; magnesite and talcum reserves rank among the world’s most abundant; jade veins yield serpentine stones so vast that the largest discovered—now painstakingly carved into an 260‑tonne Buddha—remains a local landmark. Coal seams lie deeper still, long mined to fuel blast furnaces and winter heating systems alike.

The region’s human story stretches back to prehistoric settlements. Under the Tang dynasty, imperial forces occupied the area during campaigns against Goguryeo: the ruins of Ming‑era forts and beacon towers still mark the old north‑south road between Liaoyang and Haicheng. Yet for much of its history, Anshan remained a waystation rather than a destination, dotted with modest inns for officials trudging between provincial capitals.

In 1918, a Sino‑Japanese partnership inaugurated the Anshan Zhenzing Iron Ore Company. When the Japanese established Manchukuo in 1931, this venture passed into exclusive Japanese control, and an adjoining steelworks rose on the city’s northwest plain. The settlement swelled around factory gates, drawing labourers and entrepreneurs to its furnace‑lit nights. Liberation by the People’s Liberation Army on 19 February 1948 is commemorated each year in Lishishan Park, where a grey‑stone monument marks the city’s final conflict of the civil war.

The fledgling People’s Republic placed Anshan at the heart of its industrial ambitions. In December 1948, the Angang Iron and Steel Company was founded from war‑damaged works; by July 1949, limited production resumed. Under state planning, the plant grew into one of China’s largest steel‑making centres. Open‑hearth furnaces belched billows of dust and fumes, etching Anshan’s reputation as a grim, sooty stronghold of heavy industry.

From the 1980s onward, a series of technological overhauls reduced both pollution and labour requirements. Oxygen‑blown converters replaced older smelters; continuous casting lines, introduced in 2000, cut airborne particulates still further. Although these advances curtailed the steelworks’ workforce and left some without steady employment, they eased Anshan’s environmental burden. In recent years, city planners have sought to balance heavy‑industry roots with new ambitions as a place of historical and natural interest.

Administratively, Anshan comprises four urban districts—Tiedong to the east, Tiexi to the west, Lishan north of the central mill, and Qianshan in the suburban hills—alongside one county, one autonomous county for the Manchu minority, and the county‑level city of Haicheng. The prefecture spans over 3.3 million residents; some 1.5 million live in the four principal districts. Rapid conurbation has linked Anshan to neighbouring Liaoyang, together forming a built‑up zone of 2.7 million by 2020.

Ethnically, Anshan reflects the broader pattern of northeast China. The Han comprise about 3 million residents; the Manchu, once dominant in the region, number some 520,000, mainly around the Xiuyan autonomous area. Hui and Korean‑Chinese communities add another four‑plus tens of thousands, mixing in neighbourhoods that trace their origins to Qing‑era migration and 20th‑century industrial recruitment.

Seasons in Anshan are sharply drawn. Winters, under Siberian high‑pressure, plunge to a January mean of −7.6 °C, with record lows nearing −27 °C. Summers, fed by monsoon currents, swelter to mid‑twenties on average, often drenched by sudden rainstorms. Nearly half of the year’s 620 millimetres of precipitation falls in July and August. Yet sunshine persists through 2,595 annual hours, and spring’s clarity gives way to autumnal calm before the first snows.

Transport infrastructure has expanded alongside industry. Anshan Teng’ao Airport, fifteen kilometres southwest of the centre, links to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Nanjing once daily. High‑speed rail arrived with the Harbin–Dalian line in 2012, threading through Anshan West and Haicheng West stations at up to 300 km/h in summer. Road arteries—most notably the eight‑lane, privately financed Shenyang–Haikou expressway—grant swift passage north and south, while local buses, taxis, and a comprehensive cycle‑lane network serve intra‑city travel.

Tourism now figures in municipal renewal. Qianshan National Park lies eighteen kilometres southeast, its peaks scrawled with temples where worshippers of both Buddha and Laozi gather in shared courtyards. One granite crag on the park’s western fringe resembles a reclining Maitreya, reputedly the largest natural image of the future Buddha. At the heart of the city, 219 Park recalls the PLA’s 1948 liberation with lakes and walking trails that climb gentle slopes toward memorial pavilions.

The Jade Buddha Palace, opened in September 1996, ranks among Anshan’s most visited sites. The temple complex shelters a single, 260‑tonne block of serpentine—standing nearly eight metres tall, with dual carvings of Sakyamuni and Guanyin on its opposing faces. It occupies a 22,104‑square‑metre hall crowned at thirty‑three metres to signify Buddhism’s thirty‑three heavens, and stands as one of China’s largest two‑storey structures in traditional style.

Beyond mountains and monuments, Anshan’s hot‑spring spas nod to a longer history. Tanggangzi drew Qing emperors, and today offers volcanic sand baths infused with mineral waters. Geothermal heat warms local districts throughout winter, a practical legacy of subterranean warmth that links modern blocks to Tang‑era visitors seeking relief and respite.

Agriculture endures in Anshan’s western plains, where paddocks of wheat and fields of corn surround orchard groves famed for the Nanguo pear—firm, aromatic, and often called the “king of pears.” These fruits travel south each autumn to markets across China, a reminder that even in a city best known for iron and coal, the land retains its quiet, productive pulse.

Anshan’s story is one of minerals and machines, but also of mountains and missionaries, of dictatorial planning and delicate ecological rebalance. Here, the raw clang of steel furnaces gives way to temple bells in the hills, and jade Buddha eyes gaze over factories reclaimed by green growth. The saddle‑shaped peak endures as both emblem and guardian, welcoming visitors to a place where the layers of history lie just beneath the surface, waiting to be read.