Chengde

Chengde is situated in the northeastern of Hebei province, with its coordinates being 40° 11'－42° 40'N, and 115° 54'－119° 15'E. It borders Beijing, Tianjin, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Liaoning province, and neighbors prefecture-level cities in Hebei province such as Qinhuangdao and Tangshan on the Bohai Gulf as well as land-locked Zhangjiakou.

Chengde covers an area of 39,500 square kilometers and has a total population of 3.35 million. The city administers three municipal districts, one county-level city, four counties, and three autonomous counties.

It is adjacent to Beijing and Tianjin to the south, Chifeng city and Xilin Gol League in Inner Mongolia to the north, Chaoyang city in Liaoning province and Hebei's Qinhuangdao, and Tangshan to the east, and Hebei's Zhangjiakou to the west. As an important node connecting Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia, it boasts unique location advantages.

Chengde features a good ecological environment and rich resources, and has a forest coverage rate of 55.8 percent. The city is an important water source for Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan and the best green city in North China, having earned a reputation as the "Lung of North China." As many as 98 kinds of minerals have been discovered in the city. Its proven reserves of vanadium, titanium, molybdenum and fluorite rank second, fourth and fourth in China, respectively, and its reserves of lead, silver, platinum, palladium and phosphorite rank first in Hebei province. It is the only large-scale vanadiumtitanium magnetite base in China except for Panzhihua in Sichuan province. Boasting rapid development and full of vitality, since 2004 Chengde has seen its growth in regional GDP, total fiscal revenue, and total investment in fixed assets rank among the top cities in Hebei province, making it one of the most dynamic cities in Hebei.

To develop with Beijing and Tianjinin adherence to the strategy of integration and differentiation, Chengde is striving to become an international leisure tourism base, a national vanadium and titanium resource utilization industrial base, a green organic agricultural product production and processing base, and a clean energy base with advantages in a unique location, resources, an ecological environment and unique culture. In terms of urban construction, Chengde integrates historical and cultural resources, landscapes and tourism to constitute a hub connecting Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia, and it has a planned central area of 1,250 square kilometers and a construction land area of 120 square kilometers. In addition, with the accelerated construction of major infrastructure facilities such as the Beijing-Chengde Intercity Railway (part of the Beijing-Shenyang High Speed Railway), the tourism airport express and expressways, travel from Chengde to Beijing will take just one hour, and to Tianjin and its ports only two hours. Chengde is emerging as an important regional transportation hub that connects major cities and ports.