General Situation

●Geographic Position and Climate
Datong is located north of Shanxi Province, on the north east fringe of the Loess Plateau, with its geographical position at 112°34″-114°34″ east longitude and 39°03″-40°44″ north latitude, and the average altitude of 1,056m. With the outer Great Wall as its northern boundary line, the city is connected to Inner Mongolia Autonomous Reagion, to Suozhou and Xinzhou at west and south side, and to Hebei Province at east side. The monsoon and continental temperate climate make the city have a clear season difference. The temperature between day and night is also considerable and the annual average temperature is 3.6-7.5℃. January is the coldest month, with an average temperature of -11.3℃.

●Administration Area and Population
The administration of Datong includes four districts, which is Urban District, Mine District, South suburb District and Xingrong District, and seven counties, which is Yanggao, Tianzhen, Guanglin,Linqiu, Hunyuan, Datong, and Zouyun. The whole area is 14112.56km2, of which 136km2  is downtown. The population is 3,050,000 of which 40% is non-angricultural population.

●Mineral Resource
There is abundant mineral resource in Datong. There are metal minerals like coal, copper, iron, gold, silver, aluminium, zinc, and non-metal minerals such as graphite, phosphorus, felspar, mica, limestone, pearlite, marble, granite, basalt. We provide a mineral resource base for the Economic Circle surrounding Bohai.

●Biologic Resource
There are altogether 420,000 acres of woods and 480,331 acres of grazing grass lands in Datong. The kinds of wild plants are not big, mainly wild medicine herb like ephedrine and glycyrrhiza, and wild flower plants like carnation, and there are over 200 kinds of wild animal, in which about 160 kinds are birds and 30 kinds are animals.

●History and Culture
Datong is world-famous for its long history and splendid culture. It was established more than 2400 years ago. It is one of the 24-historical and cultural cities first publisher by the State Council. It was once the Capital of Northern Wei Dynasty and the second capital of Liao and Jin Dynasty. It was also an important prefecture in Ming and Qing Dynasty. It has more than 300 cultural relics and historic sites, among of which, the ancient construction culture and Buddhist art is very well developed. One of these sites has entered into the World Cultural Heritage, and other 36 have been registered into cultural relics on national and provincial level.