Shaoyang, formerly named Baoqing , is a prefecture-level city in southwestern Hunan province, China, bordering Guangxi to the south. It has a history of 2500 years and remains an important commercial and transportation city in Hunan. It has a city area and eight suburban counties, with a population of 7.6 million, the largest in Hunan province. One of the major forest areas in Hunan, Shaoyang has a forest coverage of 42.7%. The NanShan Pastures is one of the biggest in Southern China which provide dairy products and meat for Hunanese. Shaoyang is home to Shaoyang University. The school is composed of former Shaoyang Normal College and Shaoyang College. The Shaoyang dialect of Lou Shao group of dialects of Xiang is generally spoken here.
Climate
Shaoyang has a monsoon-influenced, four-season humid subtropical climate, with cool, damp winters, and hot, humid summers. Winter begins relatively dry but not sunny and becomes progressively damper and cloudier; spring brings both the most frequent and heaviest rain of the year. Summer is comparatively sunny, while autumn is somewhat dry. The monthly 24-hour average temperatures ranges from in January to in July, while the annual mean is. The annual precipitation is about.
According to the Sixth National Census in 2010, Shaoyang's permanent residence population of 7,071,741 ranked it 2nd out of 14 prefecture-level divisions of Hunan; the male-female ratio was 107.95 to 100. Educational attainment levels were as follows: 4.49% bachelor's or higher, 60.01% middle school or higher, and the illiteracy rate was 3.24%. There were 1,950,605 households in which 6,913,913 resided, forming 97.77% of the provincial population and resulting in an average of 3.54 persons/household. Age distribution was as follows: 1,512,664 ≤14 years, 4,862,468 15−64 years, 696,609 65+ years.
Government
The current CPC Party Secretary of Shaoyang is Gong Congmi and the current Mayor is Liu Shiqing.
was opened on 28 June 2017. It is located north of Wugang, a county-level city under the administration of Shaoyang, and from the urban center of Shaoyang. The airport has a 2,600-meter runway and a 3,000-square-meter terminal building. It is projected to handle 250,000 passengers and 500 tons of cargo annually by 2020.
Economy
Although it is, by 2010 Census permanent resident population, the second-largest prefecture-level division of Hunan, its GDP places it ninth within the province, making it an archetypal example of a large-population, relatively backwards-economy city. The GDP per capita of 12,797 CNY is the lowest in the province, and is only 42.9% of the provincial average, 36.5% of the national average, and 78% of even Guizhou's corresponding figure. Primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors respectively accounted for 23.9%, 38.2%, and 37.9% of the economy.
