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<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=110 BGCOLOR="#666699" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04a00840erlcjm.png"> <div> <B>Dragonair Pilot's Association</B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FFFFCC" FACE="Arial" ><B>     |    </B></FONT><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#FFFFCC" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dragonair Pilots Association"><U><B>HOME</B></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" background="04411c00egdysm.png"> <div> <B>Weather and info for KA destinations.</B></div> <div> <B>CHINA</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id27_hkg.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Weather/City Info"><U><B>HKG</B></U></A><B>    </B><A HREF="id31_m.htm#pek" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="China North Weather"><U><B>PEK  </B></U></A><B>  </B><A HREF="id32_sha.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="China East WX"><U><B>SHA</B></U></A><B>  </B><A HREF="id32_sha.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="China East WX"><U><B>  HGH</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>    </B><A HREF="id31_m.htm#kmg" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="China North Weather"><U><B>KMG</B></U></A><B>   </B><A HREF="id31_m.htm#ctu" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="China North Weather"><U><B>CTU</B></U></A><B>    </B><A HREF="id31_m.htm#ckg" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="China North Weather"><U><B>CKG </B></U></A><B>   </B><A HREF="id32_foc.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="China East WX"><U><B>FOC</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id31_m.htm#dlc" TARGET="TRLX_Middle" TITLE="China North Weather"><U><B>DLC</B></U></A><B>    </B><A HREF="id32_syx.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="China East WX"><U><B>SYX </B></U></A><B>  </B><A HREF="id32_syx.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="China East WX"><U><B> HAK </B></U></A><B>   </B><A HREF="id32_kwl.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="China East WX"><U><B>KWL</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id32_csx.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="China East WX"><U><B> CSX </B></U></A><B>   </B><A HREF="id32_xmn.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="China East WX"><U><B>XMN </B></U></A><B>   XIY     WUH </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>TAIWAN</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id27_khh.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Weather/City Info"><U><B>KHH</B></U></A><B>    </B><A HREF="id27_tpe.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Weather/City Info"><U><B>TPE</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>JAPAN</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id27_sdj.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Weather/City Info"><U><B>SDJ </B></U></A><B>   </B><A HREF="id27_hij.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Weather/City Info"><U><B>HIJ</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>OTHER</B></div> <div> <B>BKI    DAC    </B><A HREF="id27_hkt.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Weather/City Info"><U><B>HKT</B></U></A><B>   PNH</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id27_man.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Weather/City Info"><U><B>MAN</B></U></A><B>  </B><A HREF="id27_dbx.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Weather/City Info"><U><B> DBX</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>  </B></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="pek"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A>PEK</div> <div>   <form method="post" action="http://www.weather.com/cgi-bin/uncgi/zip_city_search.cgi?par=trellix&site=magnet&code=540880&promo=english" target="_top"> <table> <tr><td> <font face="arial,helvetica" color="#004371" size="2">    Enter a City or US Zip: </font> </td><td> <input type="text" name="destination" size="8" value="">  <input type="image" src="http://image.weather.com/pics/button_go.gif" width="26" height="23" border="0" alt="go!" value="Go City"> </td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"> <a href="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/redirect_magnet?loc_id=CHXX0008&par=trellix&site=magnet&code=540880&promo=english" target="_top"> <img border="1" width="270" height="140" src="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/generate_magnet2?loc_id=CHXX0008&code=540880"></a> </td></tr> </table></form>   </div> <div> Beijing, city and capital of China, located 110 km (68 mi) north-west of the Bohai Gulf in north China. Also known as Peking or, formerly, Peiping, the city is surrounded by Hebei Province although it constitutes an independently administered municipal district of 16,808 sq km (about 6,490 sq mi). Situated at the northern edge of the North China Plain and encircled on the north and west by mountains, Beijing was a strategic northern outpost of the Chinese Empire throughout much of its history. Initially settled more than 2,000 years ago, it has been the capital of China for most of the last 700 years and is today one of the world's great cities. It is the cultural, political, and intellectual centre of China, as well as a major industrial and commercial metropolis. Beijing is the second-largest city in China after Shanghai.</div> <div>  </div> <div> Beijing, like most other Chinese cities large and small, has serious problems of air and water pollution. Rapid population growth and construction along with largely unregulated industrial and residential waste water disposal and burning of coal and other polluting materials are the principal causes.</div> <bR> <div> Mandarin Chinese (putonghua) is the language spoken in and around Beijing. The dialect of Beijing has become the standard for northern Mandarin, the standard form of Mandarin and the official spoken language of the People's Republic.</div> <bR> <div> Just over half of Beijing’s population inhabits the built-up area of the city proper. The remainder live in the surrounding counties in small cities, towns, and villages. The city has low birth and death rates and a very low rate of natural population increase. Most of the city's recent growth has been by immigration, and there are today more than one million transients (visiting workers on temporary permits or illegal entrants) who are not included in the official statistics. Many of these transients live in crude shacks or other temporary shelters or rented dormitory space. They serve as construction workers, domestic servants, and in other low level service activities. Because of their transient status and low income level, they are often blamed for rising crime and social unrest. More than 90 per cent of the population are Han Chinese, and the remainder are Manchus, Mongols, Turkic peoples from western China, and other minority nationalities and foreigners. Population 13,820,000 (2000).</div> <bR> <bR> <div> II  ECONOMY  </div> <div> As the nation's capital and political centre, the particular economic role of Beijing has been a topic of considerable debate and controversy. The city has been designated as an appropriate centre for industrial, commercial, transport, trade, and cultural and scientific development. However, these multiple roles have sometimes conflicted with one another and with the traditional roles of political and cultural centre of China. Especially troublesome has been the extremely rapid industrial development and growth under the Communist ideal and planning policies since the late 1950s of developing Beijing as a “producer” city with a large and diversified industrial base.</div> <bR> <div> The city has become the second-largest industrial centre in China, and major industries have been established in adjacent suburban satellite towns such as Shijingshan (a major iron and steel mill), Tongxian (motor vehicles), Fentai (machinery), and Fangshan (petrochemicals). By the end of 1991 more than 2.1 million workers were employed in industry. A full range of industrial products from processed foods, cotton, and synthetic textiles and garments to paints, paper, high-quality lubricants, and electronic products are now produced in Beijing. Another activity, which has grown rapidly since the introduction of economic reforms in 1978, has been construction. New buildings, roads, factories, and other infrastructural projects appear everywhere, and the pace of new construction is breathtaking. In 1991, 684,000 construction workers were employed in the city of Beijing.</div> <bR> <div> Agriculture continues to employ roughly the same number of farmers (900,000) as it has for the last decade, although its share of income produced has declined in relation to other sectors. Agricultural produce includes grain; a variety of vegetables such as cabbage, tomatoes, aubergine, carrots and onions; milk; eggs; poultry, and pork.</div> <bR> <div> Commercial and service activities have grown rapidly in recent years and now employ well over one million workers. The city has become a centre of shopping and fashion within China, and international products and brands are now commonplace. Several fashionable shopping areas are scattered throughout the city, the most famous of which is Wangfujing Avenue, just east of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The world's largest McDonald's restaurant is located here. Traditional crafts such as cloisonné work, jade carving, lacquerware, and carpet weaving continue, and the city remains famous for its arts and handicrafts.</div> <bR> <div> Beijing is one of China's centres of transport and trade. A large motorway was recently completed to Tianjin, the great industrial port city 90 km (56 mi) to the south-east. Beijing is the hub of a national network of trunk roads. A number of railway lines radiate to all parts of the country from Beijing, and several of these connect to North Korea, Russia, and the Mongolian Democratic Republic. Within the city a number of new ring roads and motorways have recently been constructed, and the Beijing underground system continues to expand as one of China's noteworthy efforts at mass transit. Despite all of the new road construction, traffic has become increasingly congested as more cars have become available. The majority of short journeys in Beijing are made on bicycles, which continue to clog the city's streets. Beijing's international airport has an extensive domestic service to most of the larger cities in China and is also served by a number of international carriers with direct services to North America and Europe as well as East, South-East, and South-West Asia.</div> <bR> <div> The city is a major hub for shopping, retailing, and trade. As the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s have proceeded, new joint ventures with foreign capital have become common, and the local economy not only includes enterprises owned by the state and collective units, but also includes many private enterprises and individuals. At the end of 1991, Beijing had 52,000 individually employed workers, known locally as getihu, in commercial activities. The service trades numbered more than 23,500 outlets in the same year and employed 153,000 people.</div> <bR> <div> III  PLACES OF INTEREST  </div> <div> The administrative territory of metropolitan Beijing comprises ten urban districts and eight surrounding, largely rural counties. Among the urban areas are four densely built-up city areas surrounded by six neighbouring suburban districts. The latter are growing rapidly as new construction of institutional, industrial and residential buildings cover the landscape and convert former agricultural land to urban use. Further away the rural counties continue to provide basic grain, vegetables, and fruit as well as building materials and water supplies to the city. Some significant recent industrial development has occurred in these rural counties as noted in the satellite towns mentioned above.</div> <bR> <div> The city proper today consists of two distinct parts: an old, formerly walled city and new outlying residential, industrial, and institutional sections built mainly after 1949. As with all important traditional Chinese cities, Beijing was encircled by a large wall and was designed in a rectangular geometric form according to the cardinal points of the compass. The city was arranged in north-south linear fashion with the key north-south axis extending from the main gates through the Forbidden City and to the Drum and Bell Towers behind. The Forbidden City was comprised of the walled palace and inner compound of China's emperors and imperial family and their retainers, and was so named because ordinary citizens were not allowed inside. This was the most revered space in traditional, imperial China. Today it contains the Palace Museum, or palaces of the former Ming and Qing emperors of China.</div> <bR> <div> The old city was comprised of two sections, a square inner city on the north side constructed between 1409 and 1420 and surrounded by a large 15 m (49 ft) high wall, containing nine gates. This inner city largely coincided with the site of the previous Yuan Dynasty capital of Da Du. Within the inner city were the Imperial City which contained government offices, temples, gardens, palaces, and parks as well as the most sacred Forbidden City. Outside the Imperial City were quarters which contained the markets and other temples as well as residential quarters. The wall was approximately 25 km (15 mi) in length.</div> <bR> <div> The second section was the southern outer city which was built towards the end of the Ming Dynasty (1521-1566). It was rectangular in shape and had a wall 23.5 km (14 mi) in length, of which 6.7 km (4 mi) was the southern wall of the old inner city. It contained important ritual temple areas as well as residential space for the populace. The geometric design was symbolically important as the main north-south central axis represented the imperial authority and ran through many key government offices, buildings, imperial residences and main gates. This tradition has continued today as Tiananmen Square and Mao's tomb are both aligned on the axis. After the Revolution in 1949, the old city walls were torn down and replaced by arterial boulevards, but several of the old gates were preserved. Despite much recent highrise construction, Beijing remains a city of great monuments, palaces, temples, and other reminders of the past glory of imperial China. It is a magnificent city, and today continues to represent the crowning achievement of urban design and city building in traditional and contemporary China.</div> <bR> <div> B  Landmarks </div> <div> Beijing has many edifices of historical and architectural interest. The Palace Museum or Gu Gong, located within the Forbidden City, was the former residence and official locus of the imperial family and court. Built more than 500 years ago, this complex comprises a series of great halls and palaces, which served for official and ceremonial occasions of state, banquets and for residential purposes. To the west of this complex is Zhongnan Hai, a large park and cluster of lakes that is walled and serves today as the residential compound for China's top leadership.</div> <bR> <div> Tiananmen Square Tiananmen Square is a large, open area adjacent to Beijing’s Forbidden City, the former home of the Chinese emperors. In the 1950s the square was enlarged to accommodate large public parades and ceremonies. Important structures on the square include the Museum of China’s History and Revolution, the Monument to the Heroes of the People, and the Hall of the People where the national legislature of China meets. In the centre of the square is the tomb of Mao Zedong, the founder of the Chinese communist government.Everen T. Brown  </div> <div>  </div> <div> Immediately south of the Forbidden City and the Palace Museum is Tiananmen Square, which is the central core of the city. Tiananmen Square is a huge plaza that can hold up to a million people and was developed after the successful communist revolution in 1949. It is the site of great annual celebrations and rallies such as the National Day celebrations on October 1. On the west side of the Square is located the Great Hall of the People where China's National Assembly meets. On the east side is the Museum of China's History and Revolution. In the centre is the monument to the Heroes of the People and the mausoleum of the late Chairman Mao Zedong. The Square received considerable notoriety in 1989 when it was the site of the student Tiananmen Square protest, which was violently suppressed by the army in a bloody massacre on June 6.</div> <bR> <div> Of the many temples in the old city, perhaps the best known and most beautiful is the complex known as the Temple of Heaven (Tian Tan) located in the southern part of the outer city. Here are located two magnificent circular ceremonial buildings with blue tiled roofs that were shrines where China's emperors worshipped. These are considered among the highest architectural achievements of traditional China. These temples and associated grounds were opened as a public park following the revolution. Other noteworthy temples include the Confucian and Lama Temples and the Temple of the White Dagoba built to commemorate the visit of the Dalai Lama of Tibet in 1651. Major sporting events are held at the Beijing Stadium, the Workers' Stadium and the Sports Ground. A new Olympic Park is to be completed on the outskirts of the city in time for the 2008 Olympic Games. Other parks include the Summer Palace in the north-west suburbs and the surrounding temples and parks known as the Fragrant Hills. These date back many centuries and were established as hunting grounds or religious retreat areas. In the north-western suburbs are tombs of most of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). These tombs are approached by the long Avenue of the Animals, lined with marble lions, elephants, camels, and horses. Located north-west of the Ming Tombs, within the municipal boundaries, is a portion of the Great Wall at Badaling. It is accessible as a day trip from central Beijing.</div> <bR> <div> C  Educational and Cultural Institutions </div> <div> Beijing has more colleges and universities than any other Chinese city. The most prominent are Beijing University, founded in 1898, and Qinghua University, the most prestigious scientific and technical institution in the country. These two and the People's University, along with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Academia Sinica) and a number of its subsidiary research institutes, are located in the north-west suburbs in an area associated with higher education and research. More than 250,000 people were employed in scientific and technical jobs in Beijing in 1991. Almost 500,000 were employed in education and communications services. Beijing is also a city of many museums and cultural activities. There are numerous theatres such as the People's Theatre, the Capital Theatre, and the Nationalities Theatre, as well as the Beijing Concert Hall for musical performances. The Beijing Library is the most important library in China and houses more than six million volumes. As the successor to the Imperial Metropolitan Library, it incorporates in part the collections of the royal libraries of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. There are also art museums, a museum of natural history and a museum dedicated to the life and times of the celebrated literary figure Lu Xun. There is a zoo, planetarium, and the former imperial observatory famed for its ancient cosmological and astronomical devices.</div> <bR> <div> IV  HISTORY </div> <div> Settlement in the vicinity of modern Beijing traces back to Neolithic (late Stone age, 3000 bc) times and earlier. The location on the northern flank of the North China Plain was crucial as a geographic and political intersection between the settled farming populations of the Han Chinese to the south and west and the nomadic tribal groups to the north, north-east, and north-west. As early as the Zhou Dynasty, an administrative capital was built here. The site continued to serve an important strategic and political buffer role during the ebb and flow of successive dynasties for more than 1,000 years as an intermediary between the two populations and ways of life. In 937 ad the Khitan Tatars from the north-east conquered part of northern China and established one of their capitals at this site. They were defeated by the Jurchen (Golden Tatars) in the mid 12th century who established the Jin Empire and rebuilt the city on a larger scale. The truly grand and elaborate development of the city emerged after the Mongol conquest of China and the establishment of the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty in 1279. The Mongol ruler Kublai Khan decided to establish his capital at the Beijing site in 1272, and for the first time the new capital, named Da Du (Great Capital), became the political and administrative centre of all China.</div> <bR> <div> This status continued for a century until the Yuan was overturned by the Ming Dynasty, established in 1368. The first emperor of the Ming established his capital on the Yangzi River at Nanjing (Southern Capital) and changed Beijing's name to Beiping, which means Northern Peace. Upon his death a struggle ensued. Beiping was renamed Beijing (Northern Capital), and in 1421 it was officially designated as the capital of the Ming. Thereafter the city developed and grew as a magnificent capital, which shaped its design and layout as it is today and which continued with additional construction of temples and palaces through the succeeding Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).</div> <bR> <div> Following the overthrow of the Qing and the establishment of the Republic of China, Beijing remained the political centre of China until 1928, when the Nationalist Party headed by Chiang Kai-shek re-established the capital in Nanjing and gave Beijing once again its early Ming Dynasty name, Beiping. The city was occupied by the Japanese from 1937 to 1945, but was not damaged much during World War II. In 1949 following the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the new Communist government designated the city its capital and restored its former name of Beijing.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="dlc"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A>DLC</div> <div>   <form method="post" action="http://www.weather.com/cgi-bin/uncgi/zip_city_search.cgi?par=trellix&site=magnet&code=540880&promo=english" target="_top"> <table> <tr><td> <font face="arial,helvetica" color="#004371" size="2">    Enter a City or US Zip: </font> </td><td> <input type="text" name="destination" size="8" value="">  <input type="image" src="http://image.weather.com/pics/button_go.gif" width="26" height="23" border="0" alt="go!" value="Go City"> </td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"> <a href="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/redirect_magnet?loc_id=CHXX0019&par=trellix&site=magnet&code=540880&promo=english" target="_top"> <img border="1" width="270" height="140" src="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/generate_magnet2?loc_id=CHXX0019&code=540880"></a> </td></tr> </table></form>   </div> <bR> <div> Dalian or Lüda, major industrial port city located on the southern (Liaodong) peninsula of Liaoning Province in north-east China. It was part of the former historical region of Dongbei. The port is on a bay facing the Yellow Sea. Population 2,560,000 (1995 estimate).</div> <bR> <div> Dalian is China's second busiest port after Shanghai and serves as a major deep-water and ice-free harbour that links north-east China with Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, and the rest of the world. Among its major exports are crude oil brought by pipeline from the large Daqing oil field in northern Dongbei. Dalian is an important manufacturing city with a broad array of heavy and light industrial products ranging from metals, machines, shipbuilding, and electric locomotives to petrochemicals, electronics, bicycles, food processing, and textiles. Near the city proper are several prosperous fishing ports on the north side of the peninsula and a naval port adjacent at Lushun. Aquatic products include fish, shrimp, scallops, abalone, and salt. Dalian has long been famous for its excellent apples and other fruits such as pears, cherries, and peaches, as well as minerals and metals including limestone, magnesium, asbestos, copper, and lead. Its rail connections extend to the north-east and north China, and in 1990 a 375 km (233 mi) motorway was completed that links it with Shenyang, the largest city and capital of Liaoning Province. It has a modern, international airport with connections to some of China's largest cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.</div> <bR> <div> The city was founded at the end of the 19th century by Russians, who took the lease of the peninsula in an 1898 agreement. Called Dalny, it developed into a commercial port at the southern terminus of the South Manchurian Railway and adjacent to the naval port at Lushun. The Russians laid out a modern city, although they lost control of it to the Japanese following their defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. The Japanese, who named the city Dairen, continued the Russian design, and the city and port grew rapidly as the Japanese invested heavily in the development of Dongbei. By 1917 Dalian had become China's second-largest port and has remained so ever since.</div> <bR> <div> After World War II the port was placed under joint Soviet-Chinese control and reverted to full Chinese sovereignty in 1955. It continued to grow rapidly and is one of China's most modern and best connected cities with the outside world. In 1984 the government designated it one of 14 open economic development cities and encouraged foreign investment. Dalian’s port facilities have continued to expand, and its newest project is a 20 sq km (7.7 sq mi) Economic and Technical Development Zone designed to produce high technology products in an energy efficient and pollution-free environment. The city is also a popular tourist destination because of its clean and orderly appearance and low population density. A number of new hotels and entertainment facilities have been constructed to support the tourist trade.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="kmg"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A>KMG</div> <div>   <form method="post" action="http://www.weather.com/cgi-bin/uncgi/zip_city_search.cgi?par=trellix&site=magnet&code=540880&promo=english" target="_top"> <table> <tr><td> <font face="arial,helvetica" color="#004371" size="2">    Enter a City or US Zip: </font> </td><td> <input type="text" name="destination" size="8" value="">  <input type="image" src="http://image.weather.com/pics/button_go.gif" width="26" height="23" border="0" alt="go!" value="Go City"> </td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"> <a href="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/redirect_magnet?loc_id=CHXX0076&par=trellix&site=magnet&code=540880&promo=english" target="_top"> <img border="1" width="270" height="140" src="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/generate_magnet2?loc_id=CHXX0076&code=540880"></a> </td></tr> </table></form>   </div> <div> Kunming (also K'un-ming, formerly Yünnan), city in south-west China, capital of Yunnan Province. Located on Lake Dian Chi at an altitude of 1,890 m (6,200 ft), the city has a temperate climate often described as “eternal spring”. It is a commercial, industrial, and transport centre. Factories here manufacture steel and non-ferrous metals, machine tools, chemicals, and cement. Copper, lead, zinc, and iron ore are mined nearby. A university and a medical school are in Kunming.</div> <bR> <div> The city was founded during the Han dynasty (206 bc-ad 220), but did not become part of China until the 13th century. Known as Yünnan or Yünnanfu, it was opened to foreign trade in 1908 and renamed Kunming in 1913. Modern industrialization, begun during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), accelerated after 1949 with the construction of large iron and steel and chemical complexes. Population 1,740,000 (1995 estimate).</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="ctu"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A>CTU</div> <div>   <form method="post" action="http://www.weather.com/cgi-bin/uncgi/zip_city_search.cgi?par=trellix&site=magnet&code=540880&promo=english" target="_top"> <table> <tr><td> <font face="arial,helvetica" color="#004371" size="2">    Enter a City or US Zip: </font> </td><td> <input type="text" name="destination" size="8" value="">  <input type="image" src="http://image.weather.com/pics/button_go.gif" width="26" height="23" border="0" alt="go!" value="Go City"> </td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"> <a href="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/redirect_magnet?loc_id=CHXX0016&par=trellix&site=magnet&code=540880&promo=english" target="_top"> <img border="1" width="270" height="140" src="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/generate_magnet2?loc_id=CHXX0016&code=540880"></a> </td></tr> </table></form>   </div> <div> Chengdu, city in central China, the capital of Sichuan Province, a port on the Min river (a tributary of the upper Yangzi), the cultural and industrial centre for the fertile Chengdu Plain. Manufactured goods include processed food, precision instruments, cutting tools and other machinery, railway and electronic equipment, pharmaceuticals, textiles (especially wool), and aluminium. Deposits of coal and natural gas are nearby. </div> <bR> <div> Sichuan University and several other institutions of higher education are in Chengdu, which was also the home of the 8th-century Tang poet Du Fu (whose residence is preserved as a museum). Other places of interest include traditional tea houses, the Taoist Qingyang Palace, and the Divine Light Monastery, with its 500 life-sized statues of Buddhist saints. The Sichuan Opera is also based here. The city hosts an annual two-month-long flower festival. </div> <bR> <div> Chengdu was founded during the Zhou dynasty (c. 1027-221 bc). Its sophisticated irrigation system dates from the 3rd century bc. The city was at the centre of silk and brocade manufacture during the Eastern Han dynasty (ad 25-220). Capital of the Shu dynasty (221-263), it became a leading commercial centre during the Tang dynasty (618-906), when it was known as I-chou. Chengdu was one of the first centres of printing in China. In 1368 it was made the capital of Sichuan. Famous since the 13th century for its luxurious satins, brocades, and lacquerware, Chengdu expanded rapidly during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and was developed as a major rail and industrial centre in the 1950s. Population 4,320,000 (1995 estimate). </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="ckg"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A>CKG</div> <div>   <form method="post" action="http://www.weather.com/cgi-bin/uncgi/zip_city_search.cgi?par=trellix&site=magnet&code=540880&promo=english" target="_top"> <table> <tr><td> <font face="arial,helvetica" color="#004371" size="2">    Enter a City or US Zip: </font> </td><td> <input type="text" name="destination" size="8" value="">  <input type="image" src="http://image.weather.com/pics/button_go.gif" width="26" height="23" border="0" alt="go!" value="Go City"> </td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"> <a href="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/redirect_magnet?loc_id=CHXX0017&par=trellix&site=magnet&code=540880&promo=english" target="_top"> <img border="1" width="270" height="140" src="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/generate_magnet2?loc_id=CHXX0017&code=540880"></a> </td></tr> </table></form>   </div> <bR> <div> Chongqing, also Chungking, autonomous municipality in south-west China, surrounded on all sides by Sichuan Province. The city is situated on a rocky peninsula at the confluence of the Yangzi and Jialing rivers. Chongqing is a major inland port of China and the leading commercial, transport, and industrial centre of the country's south-west region. It is located near iron-ore and coal deposits in a fertile agricultural region. Factories produce iron and steel, machinery, motor vehicles, cotton and silk textiles, chemicals, and processed foods. Major railways and trunk roads link Chongqing to all parts of the country. The city is the site of Chongqing University and several colleges. Several resorts and mineral spas are located in the surrounding region.</div> <bR> <div> A city has existed on the site for more than 4,000 years. In the 4th century bc it was absorbed by the Qin dynasty into what would become the first unified Chinese state. In 1890 Chongqing was opened to foreign trade. After the outbreak of hostilities between China and Japan in 1937, Chongqing became the capital of the Chinese Nationalist government, and it remained so until 1946. Although it suffered heavy damage from Japanese bombings, the city's population increased greatly, and industry also developed at a rapid pace during the war years. Since the 1950s the Chinese government has developed heavy industry in Chongqing. The city was part of Sichuan province until 1996, when it became an automonous municipality and gained considerable rural area. Population 3,470,000 (1995 estimate).</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>