Yulin is located in southeastern Guangxi province along the border with Guangdong. It is a hilly basin with a total area of. Yulin's climate is subtropical and monsoonal. Average annual temperatures is 21.6 °C. Yearly precipitation is 1,475 mm.
History
Artifacts suggest that the area was settled before the Qin Dynasty but a commandery by the name of Yulin was not established until early Han Dynasty. The urban centre of Yulin became a zhou in 996 AD. Since ancient times, Yulin has been important for trade and communications between central China and the south, especially along the coast of the Tonkin Gulf.
Yulin has a population of approximately 6.7 million. The majority of Yulin's population is Han but also includes Zhuang, Miao, and other ethnic minorities, totaling more than 100,000 people.
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Language and culture
Some Chinese linguists have suggested that the Yulin dialect is the best surviving example of what ancient spoken Chinese would have sounded like based on rhyme patterns in Tang dynasty poetry.
Dog meat festival
Yulin is also known for its annual dog meat festival which takes place on 21 June. Over 10,000 dogs are killed at this festival for human consumption. Reports of inhumane treatment, including torture, caused celebrities and others to protest against the Festival. Du Yufeng has been to Yulin Dog Meat Festival every year since 2012. Another woman named Yang Xiaoyun went as far as to pay 150,000 yuan to save 360 dogs and dozens of cats from the festival in 2014 and 7,000 yuan to save 100 dogs in 2015. Some Chinese celebrities such as Ai Weiwei, Chen Kun and Yang Mi, as well as international celebrities like Ken Todd, Lisa Vanderpump, Ricky Gervais, Ian Somerhalder, Leona Lewis, Lori Alan, and Tom Kenny, have also publicly expressed a distaste for the festival.
Economy
Yulin is rich in natural resources. Important mineral resources include granite, limestone, iron, and gemstones. It is also Guangxi's biggest source of porcelain clay. Major agricultural products are rice, bananas, tomatoes, mandarin oranges, mangoes, longan, anise, tea, sugarcane, livestock such as cattle, pigs, geese, chickens and dogs. Industrial goods include machinery, construction materials, processed food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, cigarettes, and ceramics.
Tourism
It is famous for its many mineral hot springs and one of China's oldest towers, Shiyi Tower. Also noteworthy is the annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival.
Transportation
Yulin are where the G59 Hohhot–Beihai Expressway and G80 Guangzhou–Kunming Expressway intersect, and there are also provincial highways and "not tolled" roads available. Yulin is accessible via High Speed Train rides. Typical trains take approximately 2 hours to reach Nanning, Guangxi, and 3–4 hours to Guilin, Guangxi. Services onboard regular-speed trains are also available. There is an airport named Yulin Fumian Airport serving the area under construction. It's estimated that the construction will finish by the end of this year, and the airport has a 2600m-long-runway capable for 4C standard operations.
Education
Yulin is home to Yulin Normal University, where there are 13 departments with 38 four-year undergraduate specialties, 14 three-year specialties, more than 17,200 students including 12,000 full-time students and 5,200 higher education students. Guangxi Yulin High School is a high-level key middle school in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and an advanced unit of national spiritual civilization construction. It is also the first demonstration ordinary high school in Guangxi.
