Because of the famous Siping Defense War more than seventy years ago, although Siping's economic strength is not very strong, its popularity ranking in northeastern cities is very high.
In addition to the four major cities of Shenyang, Dalian, Harbin and Changchun, Siping's fame is not inferior to that of other famous cities in northeast China.
Siping is a prefecture-level city under the jurisdiction of Jilin Province, located in the western part of the south of Jilin Province. Siping is bordered by Songyuan City and changchun city to the north, Jilin City to the northeast, Liaoyuan City to the east, Tongliao City of Inner Mongolia to the southwest, and Tieling City of Liaoning Province to the south. Before June 2020, Siping City had an area of 14,700 square kilometers and a population of more than 3 million. Why mention June 2020? Because at this time, the administrative division of Siping City underwent major changes.
Siping City originally had two districts under its jurisdiction, namely Tiedong District and Tiexi District, two counties - Lishu County and Yitong County, and two county-level cities - Shuangliao City and Gongzhuling City. Gongzhuling City was once the largest county-level administrative division in Siping City, with an area of about 4,058 square kilometers. Gongzhuling City is located between Siping and the provincial capital Changchun, bordering the Great Black Mountain to the east and the Dongliao River to the west. One of the biggest features of Gongzhuling City in terms of geography is that the northern line is closely connected to the provincial capital Changchun.
Changchun is the largest city in Jilin Province, but also a sub-provincial city, and is the leader of the development of Jilin Province. Changchun's jurisdictional areas include Jiutai, Dehui and Yushu to the north, Nong'an (Huanglongfu) to the west, and Erdao District and Shuangyang District to the east, with broad development space. However, Changchun has little room for development on the southern front alone. Changchun's urban area is very large, and its southwestern West Lake Road is not far to the west, which is the northern boundary of Gongzhuling City, which is managed by Siping City, and the two are only a few kilometers apart.
As we all know, the economic development of the northeast in these years has not been so smooth, for various reasons. There are also various ways, one of which is to build an economic center city, causing a siphon effect on the surrounding areas and avoiding a greater loss of population. People are the foundation of all development, without people, and demographic dividends, economic development can not be talked about. Therefore, it is very important for Changchun to build Changchun into a pole between harbin and Shenyang.
Due to the reasons of administrative division, the southern line of Changchun is not far from the Gongzhuling Of Siping, and the economic development naturally has certain resistance. Under such circumstances, the transfer of Gongzhuling to Changchun is of immeasurable significance to the development of Changchun's southern line. Therefore, in June 2020, the county-level Gongzhuling City was managed by Siping City and changed to Changchun City.
The adjustment of administrative divisions this time is not in the form of changing places (changing lands). For example, in the 1950s, in order to control Hongze Lake, Anhui Province assigned Sihong and Xuyi to Jiangsu Province, and Jiangsu Province assigned Xuzhou Xiao County and Zhongshan In the northwest to Anhui Province. That is to say, after Siping City lost Gongzhuling City, it did not increase its area, and the area was also reduced by more than 4,000 square kilometers due to the departure of Gongzhuling City. For the development of changchun, the provincial capital, Siping made a very big sacrifice. However, Siping City is not "no longer like a prefecture-level city" because of the lack of Gongzhuling City.
After the loss of Gongzhuling City, the area of Siping is still about 10,200 square kilometers. This area is considered to be a normal level in East China, but it is slightly smaller in the northeast, where the area of prefecture-level cities is generally larger. But even so, the area of Siping City is larger than that of Liaoyuan City (about 0.51 million square kilometers) in this province. In many areas of China, a prefecture-level administrative unit maintaining an area of about 10,000 square kilometers is enough to support the existence of prefecture-level administrative divisions, not to mention the existence of a large number of prefecture-level administrative units smaller than Liaoyuan City. However, due to the relatively narrow southeast end of Gongzhuling, after Gongzhuling left Siping City, the connection between most of Siping City and Yitong County was relatively narrow.
The origin of siping place names is generally believed to be so. According to the Chronicle of Changtu Province, this area went east through Jilin BanlaShanmen, north through Fenghua County (now Lishu County), west to Bamian City, and south to Lu village. This area is about the same distance from the above four places, called the Four Da Zhi Qu, so it is called Siping Street. Another theory holds that in Manchu, "Siping" means "awl", meaning that the rivers here are relatively thin and straight.
From March 1946 to March 1948, the heroic people's army fought the Kuomintang army four times in Siping Street, which is the famous four battles and four peaces in military history. Siping is an extremely important strategic passage between Changchun and Shenyang, and is the junction of the four Manchus (old place name) North Manchuria, South Manchuria, East Manchuria and West Manchuria, controlling Siping, which has a very great influence on Changchun and Shenyang.
The great man said: Think of Siping Street as if it were Madrid. The people's army held Siping, consolidated the northern Manchuria base area, and laid a solid foundation for the subsequent Liaoshen Campaign.
Although siping city no longer has jurisdiction over Gongzhuling, Siping still has its own development advantages. Both the Beijing-Harbin Railway and the Beijing-Harbin High-Speed Railway pass through the main urban area of Siping, making the connection between Siping and the hinterland of northeast China and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region very convenient.