Kunming

Covering an area of 15,561square kilometers, Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province, is the center of politics, economy, culture, transportation and communication in the province. Endowed with many historical relics, Kunming is an international tourist city in the Southeast Asia as well as the South Asia.

Lying in the central part of Yannan Province, 4 districts, namely Panlong, Wuhua, Guandu and Xishan; one city, namely Anning City, and 7 counties, namely Chenggong, Jinning, Fumin, Yiliang, Songming, Lunan, and Luquan, are under direct administration of Kunming. Situated in the north of the Dianchi Basin, Kunming stands at an altitude of 1,891 meters with an annual average temperature of 15.1℃. The northern part of Kunming is higher than the southern part. It has 2,400 hours of sunshine and 950mm of precipitation yearly on the average. Renowned for its perennially pleasant weather, intriguing highland scenes and sights, and venerated history, Kunming got the sobriquet of the "Spring City.

Kunming abounds in natural resources. Major mineral products are phosphorus, salt, iron, titanium, bauxite, silica, among which, phosphorus, salt and titanium have the largest production. The storage of phosphorus in Kunming ranks the first of the country. The total reserve of salt here is more than 10 billion tons. What's more, titanium and bauxite are both have high reserves here.

Kunming is one of the ten key tourist cities of China. The most famous scenic spots are the Stone Forest, and the Dianchi Pool. As one of the birthplaces of the southwest civilization, Kunming has a lot of historical relics, such as the Grand View Mansion and the Temple of the Buddha's Warrior Attendants.

In recent years, the rapid growth of the tourist industry in Kunming made great contribution to the all-round development of Yunnan Province. The success of the 1999 International Horticultural Exposition gained Kunming an international fame and made itself a hot spot of Kunming's tourist industry.

Special industries with Kunming characteristics have further developed. For example, Kunming has such manufacturing industries as precision numerical controlled machine tools, jig boring machines, wires and cables, optical instruments, Yunnan White-Drug-Powder, Yunnan chess, rice-flour noodles, rose cabbage, and various cakes and candies. Some of them have been exported to Europe, the USA, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries and regions.