Chaoyang, Liaoning

Chaoyang () is a prefecture-level city of Liaoning Province, in the Northeast of the People's Republic of China.

Chaoyang is located almost directly in between the capital of the province, Shenyang, and the capital of China, Beijing. With a vast land area of almost 20,000 square kilometers, it is the largest prefecture in Liaoning, and forms the border with Hebei Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The area under Chaoyang’s jurisdictional control is split up into two counties (Jianping, Chaoyang), two urban districts (Longcheng, Shuangta), two county-level cities (Beipiao, Lingyuan), and the Harqin Left Wing Mongolian Autonomous County. The total regional population is 3.4 million, while the urban center where the government office is located has a population of 430,000 and forms the core of Chaoyang.

Known as China's 'fossil city', many important paleontological discoveries have been made in Chaoyang, and the Harqin region is the oldest currently known prehistoric site in northern China. Two of the most remarkable Early Cretaceous birds known to date were recovered in the vicinity of the Jiufotang Formation rocks and named Longipteryx chaoyangensis and Sapeornis chaoyangensis in reference to the city.

Name

The name “Chaoyang” originates from a poem found in one of the oldest collections of Chinese poetry, the Shijing.“A wutong tree grew on a mountain. A fenghuang bird perched at the top and sang towards the morning sun” (Chaoyang’s name means...
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