Haimen

This article is about the city in Jiangsu province. For the Guangdong town of the same name, see Haimen, Guangdong.

Haimen 海门市
County-level city
Nickname(s): The River Gateway to the Sea (江海门户)
Haimen Location in Jiangsu
Coordinates:
Country	People's Republic of China
Province	Jiangsu
Prefecture-level city	Nantong
Established (as a county)	958
Became independent subprefecture	1768
Became county-level city	June 1994
Seat	Haimen Town
Government
• Deputy Mayor	Lu Yifei (陆一飞) (Communist Party of China)
Area
• Total	1,148.77 km2 (443.54 sq mi)
Elevation	4.96 m (16.27 ft)
Highest elevation	5.2 m (17.1 ft)
Lowest elevation	2.5 m (8.2 ft)
Population (2000)
• Total	942,952
• Density	820/km2 (2,100/sq mi)
Time zone	China Standard (UTC+8)
Postal code	226100
Area code	0513
Website	haimen.gov.cn

Haimen (simplified Chinese: 海门; traditional Chinese: 海門; pinyin: Hǎimén, Qihai dialect: [haɪ.məŋ], Shanghai: [hɛ̝.məŋ]) is a county-level city under the administration of Nantong, Jiangsu province, with a population of approximately 1 million. It is located at the opposite side of the Yangtze River to Shanghai and is directly north of Chongming Island except for a small portion that forms Haimen City's Haiyong Township. Chonghai Bridge links the city to Chongming County. Haimen is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Haimen.

History

The area that is now Haimen was formed from silt deposits from the Yangtze River. Several sandbanks, including Dongzhou (东洲; 東洲) and Buzhou (布洲), joined together with the mainland in the Tang dynasty. In 958 CE, during the Later Zhou dynasty in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Haimen County was established, the seat established at Dongzhou Town.

Because the mouth of the Yangtze River moved northward during the Ming dynasty, Haimen has dealt with flooding that destroyed parts of the county, including Lüsi (吕四; 呂四), Yudong (余东; 余東), and Sijia (Chinese: 四甲).

In 1672, under the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty, the seat moved to Jinghai Township (静海乡; 靜海鄉). Starting from 1701, the river's course moved south, creating more than 40 new sandbanks. In 1768, the county became an independent subprefecture with the seat moving to Maojia Town (茅家镇; 茅家鎮).

In 1912, one year after the Republic of China was founded, Haimen once again became a county. However, in 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded, Haimen became governed under Nantong Prefecture. Once county-level governments started to reappear in 1983, Haimen was reinstated as a county, and in June 1994, Haimen became a county-level city.

Geography

Administrative divisions

Haimen is divided into twenty-one towns and one township, the pene-exclave of Haiyong on Chongming. These towns are further divided into 231 villages and three fishery villages.

Climate

According to the Köppen climate classification system, Haimen has a humid subtropical climate (Cwa). This means that Haimen experiences four distinct seasons; the summers are hot and the winters are cold. The summers are rainier than the other seasons, and the summer rains usually bring flooding.

The average temperature is 15.2 °C (59.4 °F) in Haimen. January is the coldest month, and July is the hottest month. The hottest temperature recorded in Haimen was 38.0 °C (100.4 °F), occurring on both August 7, 1966 and July 31, 1992. The coldest temperature ever recorded was −9.3 °C (15.3 °F) on January 31, 1977.

The average yearly rainfall is 1,056.3 millimetres (41.59 in). The wettest year was 1975 with 1,500.7 millimetres (59.08 in), and the driest year was 1978 with 654.6 millimetres (25.77 in).

Transport

Qinglonggang (t 青龍港, s 青龙港, Qīnglónggǎng), at the mouth of the Qinglong Creek, provides ferry service to nearby Chongming Island.

External links

• (Chinese) Regional topographical map
• (simplified Chinese) 行政区划 (Administrative Divisions of Haimen)
• (simplified Chinese) 地理位置 (Geography of Haimen)
• Haimen City English guide (Jiangsu.NET)
• (English) (Chinese) "Illustrated Album of Yangzhou Prefecture", from 1573-1620, has illustrations of Haimen