History
Changchun started as a minor trading town. In 1800, Emperor Jiaqing of the Qing Dynasty selected a small village on the east bank of the Yitong River and named it "Changchun Ting." In 1889, it was promoted as "Changchun Fu".
In May 1898, as Russians were building a railway from Harbin to Lüshun (the southern branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway), Changchun got its first railway station, located in Kuancheng.[2]
After Russia's loss of the southernmost section of this branch as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the Kuancheng station (Kuanchengtze, in contemporary spelling) became the last Russian station on this branch. The next station to the south - the new "Japanese" Changchun station, just a short distance to the south - became the first station of the South Manchuria Railway, which now owned all the tracks running farther south, to Lüshun, which they re-gauged to the standard gauge (after a short stint of using the narrow Japanese gauge during the war).[3]
A special Russo-Japanese agreement of 1907 provided that Russian gauge tracks would continue from the "Russian" Kuancheng Station to the "Japanese" Changchun Station, and vice versa, tracks on the "gauge adapted by the South Manchuria Railway" (i.e. the standard gauge) would continue from the Changchun Station to the Kuancheng Station.[2] [4]
Changchun expanded rapidly as the junction between of the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway and the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway which continued to have different rail gauges, as well as permit licences until 1935. Changchun had railway repair shops, and branch lines originating in Changchun extended into Koreaand Inner Mongolia.
An epidemic of pneumonic plague occurred in surrounding Manchuria from 1910 to 1911. [1]. Later, the Japanese established Unit 100 to develop plague biological weapons.
In 1932 the capital of Manchukuo, a Japan-controlled puppet state in Manchuria, was moved to Changchun from Jilin City (Kirin city) (located within less than 200 km to the east). Then known as Hsinking (Chinese: 新京; pinyin: Xīnjīng; Wade–Giles: Hsin-ching; Japanese: Shinkyō; English trans.: New Capital), the capital was a well-planned city with broad avenues and modern public works. The city underwent rapid expansion in both its economy and infrastructure. Many of buildings built during the Japanese colonial era still stand today, including those of the Eight Major Bureaus of Manchukuo (Chinese: 八大部) as well as the Headquarters of the Japanese Kwantung Army(simplified Chinese: 关东军司令部; traditional Chinese: 關東軍司令部).
From 1931 to 1945 China's last emperor Pu Yi was installed as the Manchukuo government head by the Japanese authority. He resided in the Imperial Palace (Chinese: 帝宮) which is now the Museum of the Manchu State Imperial Palace (simplified Chinese: 伪满皇宫博物院; traditional Chinese: 僞滿皇宮博物院).
During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II the Imperial Japanese Army implemented in Changchun the headquarters of Unit 100 ("Wakamatsu Unit"), under command of veterinarian Yujiro Wakamatsu. This facility dedicated itself to both the study of animal vaccines to protect Japanese resources, and, especially, veterinary biological-warfare. Diseases were tested for use against Soviet and Chinese horses and other livestock. In addition to these tests, Unit 100 ran a bacteria factory to produce the pathogens needed by other units. Biological sabotage testing was also handled at this facility: everything from poisons to chemical crop destruction.
Severely damaged during World War II, the city was taken by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. The Russians maintained a presence in the city during the Chinese civil war until 1946.
Kuomintang forces occupied the city in 1946, but were unable to hold the countryside against communist forces. The city fell to the communists in 1948 after a 5-month-long siege by the People's Liberation Army that resulted in a massive famine with a civilian death toll of 100,000 to 300,000. The facts of the siege are still subject to official censorship in PRC.[5]
Renamed Changchun by the People's Republic of China government, it became the capital of Jilin in 1954. The Changchun Film Studiois also one of the remaining film studios of the era.
From the 1950s, Changchun was designated to become a center for China's automotive industry. Construction of the First Automobile Works began in 1953 and production of the Jiefang CA-10 truck, based on the Soviet ZIS-150 started in 1956. In 1958, FAW introduced the famous Hongqi (Red Flag) limousines.
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Changchun lies in the middle portion of the Northeast China Plain. The city is situated at a moderate elevation, ranging from 250 metres (820 ft) to 350 metres (1,150 ft) within its administrative region. In the eastern portion of the city, there lies a small area of low mountains.
Changchun has a four-season, monsoon-influenced, humid continental climate (Köppen Dwa). Winters are long (lasting from November to March), cold, and windy, but dry, due to the influence of the Siberian anticyclone, with a January mean temperature of −15.1 °C(4.8 °F). Spring and fall are somewhat short transitional periods, with some precipitation, but are usually dry and windy. Summers are hot and humid, with a prevailing southeasterly wind due to the East Asian monsoon; July averages 23.1 °C (73.6 °F). Snow is usually light during the winter, and annual rainfall is heavily concentrated from June to August. A typical year will see upwards of 2,600 hours of sunshine, and a frost-free period of 140 to 150 days.
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