Page 7 - 外事办 境外来同人员城市服务指南 150x110

Preface

Located in northern Shanxi Province, Datong is the second largest city of Shanxi
Province. Datong is a national regional central city, Top Tourist City of China, and
one of the ten Ancient Capital City of China. Datong consists of 4 districts and 6
counties and one national-level economic and technological zone. Covering an
area of 14,100 square kilometers, it has a population of 3.1 million. The name of
the city ‘Datong’ has profound historic and cultural context. Datong is cultural and
tourism city, new energy city and digital economy city. Datong has been awarded
National New Energy Model City, Top Tourist City of China, National Garden
City, National Comprehensive Transport-hub City, Sculpture Capital of China, Top
10 Sports and Leisure City of China, International Gourmet City etc.
Datong is a city with long history and profound culture. It has 100,000 years of
human civilization history, 2,300 years of recorded history, 1,700 years of city
history and 412 years of history as a capital city. Datong is one of the first group of
twenty-four historic and ancient cities of China and one of the ten ancient capital
cities of China. According to statistics, there are one world cultural heritage,
30 national key cultural relics protection units and more than 3,000 immovable
cultural relics within the region. Datong has a unique regional culture consisting
of the Northern Wei Dynasty Culture represented by the Yungang Grottoes and the
Hanging Temple as representatives, the Liao and Jin Dynasties culture represented
by the Huayan Temple and the Shanhua Temple and the Ming and Qing Dynasty
culture represented by the Datong Great Wall, ancient fortresses and the Nine
Dragon Wall as representatives.
Datong is a hub of communication with high efficiency. As an important
node city along the north route of ‘the Belt and Road Initiative’, Datong is one of
the 80 national comprehensive transportation-hub cities and one of the 25 national
logistics hub cities of China. Four national railway truck lines, namely Jingbao
(Beijing-Baotou), Daqin (Datong-Qinhuangdao), Tongpu (Datong-Puzhou) and
Jingyuan (Beijing-Taiyuan), and three high-speed railways, namely Dazhang
(Datong-Zhangjiakou), Daxi (Datong-Xi’an) and Jidazhang (Jining-Datong-
Yuanping), meet in the city and connect northern China, north western China,
north eastern China and the hinterland of China. Five expressways lead to Beijing,
Taiyuan and Hohhot. The national routes have been opened providing connections
to municipalities, provincial capital and transportation-hub cities of China from
Datong Yungang International Airport.