Zhengzhou, Host of 8th UCLG ASPAC Congress 2020 – Knowing the City Much Better

Zhengzhou has been selected to host the upcoming 8th UCLG ASPAC Congress on 24-28 August 2020. There are lots of reasons you will not want to miss this biggest gathering of cities and local governments in Asia-Pacific region.

The City of History

Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan Province. It is located in the centre of China. The city was built in March 1928. It has a total population of 10.136 million and a total area of 7,446 square kilometres. Its urbanisation rate is 73.4%. Zhengzhou has won the titles of “China’s Famous Historical and Cultural City,” “China’s Excellent Tourist City,” and so on.

Zhengzhou is the important birthplace of Chinese civilisation, with Peiligang Culture for 8,000 years, Dahecun Culture for 6,000 years, Huangdi’s Epic for 5,000 years, and of Shang Dynasty’s Capital for 3,600 years. For these reasons, it is one of the Eight Major Ancient Capitals in China. It has been accepted as a member of the World League of Historical Cities. There are 8,651 immovable historical relics, which possesses two World Cultural Heritage sites and 74 national-level key cultural relics protection units and more than 80 tourist attractions. The cultural and natural landscapes like Huangdi’s Birthplace, Remains of Shang Dynasty Capital, Song Mountain as well as the world cultural heritage site—the historical monuments of Dengfeng in “The Center of Heaven and Earth” are all well-known at home and abroad.

What Zhengzhou Offers

Zhengzhou is a comprehensive transportation hub city of highway, railway, aviation and communications. It is the only double-cross centre of ordinary and high-speed railway networks of China. A Union Jack-shaped high-speed railway network in China centred by Zhengzhou will be formed in the future. Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport has opened 34 all cargo air routes and 208 passenger air routes; the freight volume in the international region ranks first in China, basically forming a hub of air route network across Europe, America and Asia, covering major global economies, and becoming an important air gateway for the central region to the outside world. In 2019, China Europe train (Zhengzhou) started 1000 shifts (638 departures and 362 returns), an increase of 33 per cent, with an annual cumulative values of $3.354 billion and cargo weight of 541,400 tons.

In 2018, Zhengzhou’s total GDP was 1014.33 billion yuan, 8.1 per cent higher than the previous year. Zhengzhou is an important industrial city in the central part of China. At present, there are seven main industries such as automobile, equipment manufacturing, coal, electricity, aluminium, food, textile and clothing, electric information and so on. Zhengzhou established the two strategic supporting industries “electronic information, automobile and equipment manufacturing industry” and the two strategic new developing industries “new material industry, biology and pharmaceutical industry.” Meanwhile, Zhengzhou has transformed and upgraded the three traditional industries which are modern food processing industry, aluminium and aluminium intensive processing industry, home and brand apparel manufacturing industry.

Zhengzhou has developed science and technology education with a complete higher education, vocational education, basic education and special education system. Now, it has 130 scientific research institutions. It also has a number of provincial key colleges and universities such as Zhengzhou University, and Henan Agricultural University, and a number of municipal colleges and universities such as Zhengzhou University, and Huanghe Science and Technology College. Among these universities, Zhengzhou University is a national key university.