Travel Guide Ningbo 宁波

Ningbo, also known as "Yong" of the name of the river passing through it, is a famous international commercial port. Located east of Zhejiang province, the city has a very long history. With strong Buddhist tradition, she still has beautiful temples.HistoryNingbo means in Chinese the «calm sea». In the Spring and Autumns (770-476 BC), the city was an important centre of the Kingdom of Yue. Under the Tang (618-907), renamed Mingzhou, she owned shipyards and was an important centre for the production of celadon porcelain. These two characteristics enabled him to establish trade links with the outside world. It was one of the four major foreign trade ports in China, in the image of Canton, Yangzhou and Quanzhou.Under the Song (960-1127), its strategic location and its deep-sea status made it one of the main international trade ports. After the opium wars and the Nanjing Treaty, the city opened up even more to international trade, but it quickly suffered competition from Shanghai.Starting in 1949, Ningbo became one of the largest traditional fishing harbours. Today it is one of the major ports in the country.Linked to the Zhoushan archipelago, which has a deep water channel (50 m), the city is now accessible to the largest vessels. Ningbo consists of three ports: Ningbo, Zhenhai and Beilun. Since 1984, the city has been one of the 14 ports open to foreign investment, which would greatly accelerate its development.The City TodayToday, Ningbo has more than 5 million inhabitants. The overseas Chinese investments, allowed the city to develop regularly and the economic development zone, created in 1984, was extended in 1992.In recent years, a traditional industry (textiles, jute, shipbuilding) has placed a high-tech sector. Ningbo Harbour is constantly being modernized to relieve the considerable congestion in Shanghai Harbour.The Ningbo-Shanghai-Hangzhou triangle is expected to become one of the largest international trading centres in the early st century. Ningbo does not count on many interesting sites for the passing tourist. The city is, however, a step for travellers to the Buddhist site of Putuoshan.