Neighboring upon the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan City Cluster, Shaoshan City is located at the hilly land in central Hunan, administering 2 towns and 6 townships, i.e. Qingxi Town, Yintian Town, Ruyi Townshiop, Shaoshan Township, Yanglin Town, Daping Township, Yintian Township, Yongyi Township. Shaoshan enjoys excellent natural ecological environment. The subtropical monsoon moist climate with distinctive four seasons and fresh air give Shaoshan a good name of “Natural Oxygen Bar”. It has 210 km2 land and 100,000 population. Shaoshan has a long history of 4,000 years and is worldly well-known with Mao Zedong, the first chairman of the People’s Republic of China, who was born here on December 26, 1893. It has been listed into the National Scenic and Historic Interest Area since 1994 and one of China’s first authorized “Excellent Tourism Cities”. Shaoshan is most popularly known as the birthplace of Mao Zedong, the founder of the People's Republic of China. The tourist sites related to Chairman Mao have attracted many people, such as Mao Zedong’s Former Residence, the Private School (sī shú 私塾) site in which Mao once studied, and the Memorial Hall of Mao Zedong, which showcases the life story and outstanding contributions of Mao Zedong in his whole life (1893-1976). The Memorial Hall of Mao Zedong boasts a collection of more than 10,000 pieces of historical treasures, including cultural relics, documents and photos recording the revolutionary stories of Mao Zedong. Among them, over 400 pieces belong to Class One collections. The exhibits include the bed Mao Zedong slept in his childhood, records of the Grand Historian and the Analects of Confucius he once read, Mao Zedong’s diaries during the period of launching the peasant movement in Shaoshan, so on and so forth. In addition of those historic sites, the natural scenery of Shaoshan is also attractive. There are Eight Sceneries of Shaoshan, i.e. Green Pines on Mount Shaofeng (韶峰耸翠), Morning or Evening Glow over Tower Mountain Range (塔岭晴峡), Fairy Hut (仙女茅庵), Phoenix Pavilion Site (凤仪亭址), Yanzhi Ancient Well (胭脂古井), Spring on Stone Wall (石壁流泉), Stone Gate (顿石城门), and Breeze from Stone House (石屋清风). All of them are recorded in ancient books. Tourism is Shaoshan’s pillar industry. Shaoshan embraces 7 scenic sites and 82 scenic spots integrating with commemoration and recreation. With its long history, abundant culture and beautiful scenery, Shaoshan’s development is very promising. Since the founding of new China, Shaoshan has received over 50 million visitors. In 2008 it received 3.6 million visitors bringing about nearly 653 million RMB of tourism income. Shaoshan has a complete industrial and agricultural system. In 2005, Shaoshan Science & Technology Park was established. It covers an area of 10km2 and directs to the development of bio-pharmacy, advanced manufacture and hi-tech industry. The agriculture of Shaoshan includes planting of traditional crops, economic crops like flowers and lotus as well as farm and sideline product processing industry. Now it has a number of provincial-level leading enterprises in this field. City construction is in full swing and it is excellent in electricity supply and telecommunication as well as transportation with the railways and highways accessible from all directions such as Hunan-Guizhou Railway, Beijing-Zhuhai Highway, Shanghai-Ruili Highway, Changsha-Changde Highway, etc. Shaoshan’s GDP in 2008 was 22.8 billion RMB.
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