Pailou, Liaoning


Pailou is a small mining town about 20 kilometers southeast of Haicheng, Liaoning in Northeast China. A large magnesium mine is located just south of town.
Having to locate on the outskirt of a major city, this town consists of a main boulevard that extends from west to east. Much of the older apartments are built in the late 1980s and early 1990s while the newer ones are constructed from the late 90s till present. It has an area of and a population of 39,900. Despite the town's main focus on mining, agricultural activities are present. Local farmers grew crops, primarily corn, on the "quite rural looking" areas on the Northern skirt, and originally using a creek which flows from East to Southwest as a source of irrigation until pollution took over in the late 1990s.
Before the 1970s, Pailou was a quiet town. But as industrial sites begin to develop and expand in the mountains within Pailou and its neighboring towns and the drastic rise in population in the late 20th century, pollution and demand for resource soon becomes a problem.