Shanxi's great plain capital on the Fen River
Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi, holds about 5.39 million permanent residents across 6,988 square kilometres of six districts and three counties as of 2021. The name pairs great with plain where the Fen leaves mountains for flatter ground.
So many dynasties ruled from here that the city earned the nickname Lóngchéng, City of the Dragon; other old names include Bīngzhōu, the source of its one-character abbreviation, and Jìnyáng. The area was held by the Rong from about 859 BC until the Di pushed them out in 662 BC. In 497 BC Dong Anyu, steward to the Jin official Zhao Jianzi, built the first walled town of Jinyang, which gives Taiyuan more than 2,500 years of urban history.
Water decided an early showdown. At the Battle of Jinyang in 453 BC, Zhi Yao flooded the city by diverting the Fen, but Zhao Xiangzi won over the Wei and Han, and on the night of 8 May Zhao troops broke the dams and drowned the Zhi army instead. Jin's split into Han, Zhao and Wei in 403 BC marks the boundary between the Spring and Autumn and Warring States eras. Qin seized the area in 248 BC and set up Taiyuan Commandery, the first official use of the name for this place, and it became one of 36 commanderies after unification in 221 BC.
In the turbulent centuries that followed it changed hands among short-lived northern states: the Xiongnu Former Zhao took it in 316, Later Zhao in 319, Former Yan in 358 and Former Qin in 370. Eastern Wei made it a secondary capital in 534, housing the mansion of the chancellor Gao Huan. The Tang founders Li Yuan and Li Shimin used it as their military base, and in 690 Wu Zetian named it the Northern Capital, alongside Chang'an and Luoyang, a status Li Bai celebrated in verse; in 742 Emperor Xuanzong renamed it Beijing, unrelated to the present capital. In the Five Dynasties, Shi Jingtang founded Later Jin here in 936 with Khitan help.
Today Taiyuan sits near the middle of Shanxi with the Fen flowing through its centre, and serves as the province's political and economic hub, with industry weighted towards energy and heavy chemicals.
Source: Taiyuan
