Hezhou City
中文
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- Hezhou, a city under the jurisdiction of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is located in northeastern Guangxi and was abolished as a city in 2002, at the junction of Hunan, Guangdong, and Guangxi provinces (autonomous regions), with an administrative area of 11,752.64 square kilometres. As of the end of 2023, the total household population was 2,493,900, of which 180,700 were urban households and 499,300 were ethnic minorities such as Zhuang, Yao and Miao.
Economic Overview In 2023, the Gross Regional Product (GRP) was 97.514 billion yuan, of which the added value of the primary industry was 17.824 billion yuan, the added value of the secondary industry was 37.504 billion yuan, and the added value of the tertiary industry was 42.187 billion yuan. The annual per capita GDP will be 48,257 yuan. General public finance budget revenue of 4.709 billion yuan; general public finance budget expenditure of 21.735 billion yuan. Completed investment in fixed assets of the whole society decreased by 7.5 per cent compared with the previous year. Total retail sales of consumer goods amounted to 20.291 billion yuan. Total import and export of goods for the year was RMB 3.050 billion. Per capita disposable income of urban residents was 39,428 yuan, and per capita consumption expenditure was 21,894 yuan. Per capita disposable income of rural residents was 17,596 yuan, and per capita consumption expenditure was 10,869 yuan.
Ethnicity Hezhou is a multi-ethnic settlement area, inhabited by 42 ethnic groups such as Han, Zhuang, Yao, Miao, etc., with 1 Yao Autonomous County under the jurisdiction of 5 Yao townships and 212 administrative villages of ethnic minorities in the city. There are 212 minority villages in the city. Among them, 4 ethnic groups, including Han, Zhuang, Yao and Miao, are the hereditary ethnic groups in Hezhou, while the others are the ethnic groups that moved in before the founding of the People's Republic of China or before or after 1949, or since the reform and opening up because of their work and marriage, and have not settled for a long time with a relatively small population.
Religion There are two religious groups in Hezhou, the Hezhou Buddhist Association and the Hezhou Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee. The city's Buddhist Association was founded in August 2014, and its second board of directors consists of a president, an executive vice-president, two vice-presidents, a secretary-general, nine executive directors, and 15 council members, with the president being Shih Yuan Chan. Hezhou Christian Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee was established in July 2022, the first standing committee members 24, with 1 chairman, 3 vice-chairmen, 1 secretary general.
Language There are nearly thirty kinds of Hezhou folk dialects of various appellations. They belong to the six major Chinese dialects of Yue, Hakka, Guanhua, Xiang, Min, and Tujia, in addition to a number of dialects whose affiliation is yet to be determined; there are three ethnic minority languages, including Zhuang, Mian, and Biao.
Cantonese. It is the most widely distributed and layered Chinese dialect in Hezhou, and the sub-dialects such as local dialect, Tubai dialect, Liuzhou sound, Zhongshan dialect, Fuchuan Wuzhou dialect, Pumen dialect and Daxiang dialect belong to the Cantonese Gouxiao piece (i.e., Sino-Tibetan language family - Chinese language family - Cantonese language - Gouxiao piece). Local and Tu Baihua are found in Babu District, Pinggui District, Zhaoping County and other counties. The Liuzhou dialect is mainly distributed in the Xindu area of Babu District, the Pumen dialect is distributed in the Xindu plain in the southern part of Babu District with Pumen as the centre, the Zhongshan dialect is distributed in the territory of Zhongshan County with Dongjiaxingdiao as the centre, and the Wuzhou dialect is distributed in the south-central part of Fuchuan Yao Autonomous County. Yangshan dialect, Liantan dialect and Jie dialect also belong to Cantonese, which migrated from Guangdong. The Yangshan dialect is mainly found in Huangyao Town and Zhangmulin Town in Zhaoping County and Qingtang Town in Zhongshan County. Liantan dialect is mainly found in Huangyao Town, Zhaoping County, Yangshuo Administrative Village, Chunfu Administrative Village, Baishan Administrative Village, Huangzhu Village, Ketang Tun and other villages. Street dialect, also known as street voice, is mainly distributed in Zhaoping County Town, Huangyao Market and some surrounding villages. Baihua (belonging to Guangfu Cantonese), sporadically distributed in Zhongshan County, Yangtou Town street, Qingtang Yingjia and other places.
Hakka language. A large number of Hakka people have been in Hezhou for only about 200 years, and the Hezhou Hakka dialect is divided into several varieties, such as Wuhua sound (or Changle sound), Hebo sound, Heyuan sound, and so on, depending on the place of origin. The Hakka dialect is distributed in all counties and districts of Hezhou. There is little variation within the Hakka dialect, which is a strong dialect in Hezhou, and some non-Hakka speakers also speak Hakka.
Southwestern Official Dialect. In Hezhou, it is also called Guanhua, Guilinhua, Speaking Guan, Zhengzhi, and Hejiehua. The inhabitants of Guiliu dialect in Hezhou are located in Babu District, Zhaoping County, Zhongshan County, and Fuchuan Yao Autonomous County. Before the promotion of Putonghua, the Southwest Official Language was the common language of all ethnic groups in Guangxi, and it had a great influence on the neighbouring languages and dialects. In Hezhou, especially in the north of Hezhou, many speakers of other languages and dialects also speak Guiliu. Some residents of Zhongshan County, who used to speak Zhuang, and some residents of Fuchuan Yao Autonomous County, who used to speak Du dialect or ‘Wuzhou dialect’, have switched to Guiliu dialect.
Du dialect. It is the collective name for the Seven Capitals, Eight Capitals, and Nine Capitals, a mixed Chinese dialect, and most of the inhabitants of this dialect have moved in from Hunan or Jiangxi, and many of them are the descendants of officers and soldiers who have served in the border guards. The ‘Yaojiahua and Yaohua’ spoken by the Yao people in Zhongshan County and Fuchuan Yao Autonomous County also belong to this kind of mixed Chinese dialect. They are mainly found around the city of Hezhou, and in the northern part of Zhongshan County and Fuchuan Yao Autonomous County.
Hukuanghua. The community moved from Yizhang in Hunan Province during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, and there are several isolated islands of the dialect in Hezhou, such as Ouya in Xinlian Administrative Village of Liantang Town, Liya in Daning Town, and General Chong in Pangu Administrative Village of Goitang Town. Hukuanghua is a native language. Huguang dialect and Cormorant dialect are also mixed dialects like Du dialect, which belongs to Guibei Ping dialect, and some experts in the linguistic field also call the native language of the Gui Xiang Guangdong side as Wuling native language.
Cormorant dialect. It is distributed in the natural village of Cormorant House of Xialiang Village Committee on the south bank of Hejiang River in the suburbs of Hezhou City. There are also a few families speaking Cormorant dialect in Liantang Gubai Village on the side of Hejiang River. A small number of boat people who settled ashore in Zhaoping County also speak a dialect similar to Cormorant.
Balao dialect. It belongs to the Min language, which comes from the river, and is only spoken in Bailao Village on the side of the He River in Xindu Town, Babu District, which is an isolated dialect island. There are also one or two villages in Zhaoping County's Zhangmu Township and Zhongshan County's Liang'an Yao Township where there are people over 60 years old who speak Min.
Baoqing language, a Xiang language. The Baoqing dialect community moved from Baoqingfu, Hunan (present-day Shaoyang area) around the late Ming Dynasty, and is mainly found in Chaodong Township, Fuchuan Yao Autonomous County, and Huashan Yao Township, Zhongshan County.
Ploughman's language. It is an endangered dialect of Cantonese with some characteristics of Guibei dialect, and is more similar to another Cantonese language, Yangshan dialect. It is only found in the villages of Sanhuatang and Longwan in Jiuru Village, Zhangmulin Township, Zhaoping County.
The three minority languages inhabiting Hezhou are Mian, Zhuang and Biao.
Yao, also known as Mian, is the Chinese translation of the word ‘Mian’, which means ‘Yao-speaking people’. Yao language belongs to the Yao branch of the Miao and Yao language family. The Yao speakers in Hezhou mainly live in Daguishan and Mengzhuling Mountains.
The Zhuang language belongs to the Zhuang-Tai branch of the Zhuang-Dong language family. It is distributed in the townships of Nanxiang, Daning, Huangdong, Goitang, Shatian, Qingtang, Huangyao, and Zaima, forming large and small islands of Zhuang dialects, the largest of which is in Nanxiang Township, Babu District.
The standard language is a minority language of the Dongshui branch of the Zhuang-Dong language group (Dongtai language group) of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is mainly distributed in a few natural villages in four village committees of Qiaotou, Dapan, Guishan and Fanglin in Shatian Township, Pinggui District. It is only 200 years since they moved from Shidong, Huaji. The local people call it ‘Huaji sound’ or ‘Huaji language’, they speak standard language at home and other languages outside, as a minority language exists in Hezhou, which has not been known for a long time.