Hanshou County

Hanshou County 汉寿县
County
Hanshou Location in Hunan
Coordinates:
Country	People's Republic of China
Province	Hunan
Prefecture-level city	Changde
Time zone	China Standard (UTC+8)

Hanshou County (simplified Chinese: 汉寿县; traditional Chinese: 漢壽縣; pinyin: Hànshòu Xiàn) is under the administration of Changde, Hunan province, China. It occupies the southeastern corner of Changde City and borders the prefecture-level city of Yiyang to the south and east. It is located on the west of Dongting Lake, which is the second largest lake in China. Hanshou is a historical county. In the early Zhanguo Dynasty administration was established. Abundant source of waters and rivers make Hanshou a famous rice and fish producing area. Dongting Lake was once the largest lake in China, in the 1950s, the Chinese government encouraged plantation of rice and built many dams in the lake. The area of Dongting Lake schrank dramatically. Owing to the river network in this district, land traffic system was underdeveloped. The river Yuan Jiang splits the county into two parts, the so-called west lake region and the downtown region of Hanshou. Due to this fact, people from west lake region used to take a whole day to come all the way to the downtown because there was no bridge across the river, and cars and travelers have to count on the ferry to cross Yuan Jiang. In 2008 the Yuan Jiang Grand Bridge was put into use which brought great convenience to traffics across the river. Hanshou has a population of 780,000. Many young people leave the county as migrant workers to south and east coastal areas, e.g. Guangdong, Shanghai, etc., in the hope of finding better jobs and education opportunities for themselves and their next generation. Young children are left at home and often attended by their grandparents.Hanshou’s economy relies mainly on agriculture. Rice, cotton, canola oil, green ramie, Italian aspens, various fishes from the Dongting lake, fleshes are the major products in the county. The settle-in of Zoomlion industrial park is deemed as a milestone for the industry development in this county. It brings as well a large amount of jobs to this region. Raw agricultural products are processed by some local companies and exported abroad, for example, onions are cooked and canned to export to Japan by private JiaodeChang, Italian aspens are fabricated by private Guozhen Wooden Co. into shining fire-resistant wedge joint board for house construction in North America. Other state-owned factories such as paper-making company, spinning mill went into bankruptcy several years ago due to environmental pollutions, corruption and low efficiency to compete in the market. In short, industry in this country is developing gradually with vast configuration change.The east part of the county, which is in the western Dongting Lake is protected by the state law as a wet land conservation area. Thousands of acres of reeds sprawl across the wet land. Thanks to the enforcement of state law, the local ecological system is quite less disturbed by human activities in the conservation area, it becomes an enjoyable habitat for hundreds types of fishes, birds and wild animals. A lot of tourists are attracted to the Western Dongting Lake National Wet Land Park to enjoy the peace and harmony of nature right on the edge of Dongting Lake.