Daye, Hubei

Daye 大冶
—  County-level city  —
大冶市
Daye Lake on the southern edge of Daye's urban core
Daye Location in China
Coordinates: 30°06′N 114°59′E / 30.1°N 114.983°E / 30.1; 114.983Coordinates: 30°06′N 114°59′E / 30.1°N 114.983°E / 30.1; 114.983
Country	People's Republic of China
Province	Hubei
Prefecture-level city	Huangshi
Area
- Total	1,460 km2 (563.7 sq mi)
Elevation	25 m (82 ft)
Population (2000)
- Total	813,600
- Density	557.3/km2 (1,443.3/sq mi)
Time zone	China Standard (UTC+8)
Website	http://www.hbdaye.gov.cn/

Daye (Chinese: 大冶; pinyin: Dàyě) is a city of eastern Hubei province, Central China. Administratively, it is a county-level city of Huangshi City.

Before the adoption of the Hanyu Pinyin, the name of the city was often transcribed in English as Tayeh.^[1]

Daye Exhibition Center

As it is usually the case with county-level cities, Daye includes both an urban core and a fair amount of rural land in all directions, with smaller townships (zhen) such as Dajipu (大箕铺). According to the Fifth Population Census of China (2000), the entire county-level city of Daye had 813,600 residents, with a population density of 558 people per square kilometer.^[2]

The city is served by the China National Highway 106 (which coincides in this area with China National Highway 316) and a railway. There are no passenger train stations in Daye, however; passengers must board at the Huansghi station, near Huangshi center city.

The Daye Lake south of Daye's urban core is surrounded by parks and fishing ponds, and is a popular place for recreation.

For a traveler who goes on G316 from Wuhan toward the south-east, Daye appears as a border between more urban and more rural parts of the province. Daye sits on the south-eastern border of the heavily industrialized Wuhan/Ezhou/Huangshi metropolitan area; south of it, the much more rural Yangxin County begins.

The speech of Daye and the adjacent counties farther south (toward the Jiangxi border) has been traditionally characterized as the Daye dialect, part of the Datong dialect group of Gan Chinese.^[3]

Economy

In a shopping and entertainment area in central city

Daye is an industrial city, a center of mining^[4] and metallurgy; its name means 'Big Smeltery'. Among the major employers is Huangshi Daye Non-ferrous Metals Co., Ltd.^[5]

History

Ta-yeh (Daye) and Tie-shan-pu (Tieshan) shown in the middle of this 1915 map, along with an early railway. Lake Daye south of town is labeled as L. Kin-hu (i.e. Jinhu, "Golden Lake")

Daye County existed on and off for centuries; as recently as the WWII period, it included much of today's prefecture-level city of Huangshi. This means that pre-1949 references to a location in "Daye" or "Tayeh" may actually refer to anywhere within today's Huangshi.

Daye County was re-established on June 1, 1962, on a rather smaller scale, as part of Huangshi City. On February 18, 1994 Daye was converted into a county-level city, still within the prefecture-level city of Huangshi.^[6]

References

1. ^ Bureau of Mines / Minerals yearbook area reports: international 1971 (1971).
2. ^ Huangshi population statistics, as reported by Huangshi Prefecture-Level City Government
3. ^ Daye topolect
4. ^ Fengjiashan Mine (Daye Copper mine), Edong Mining District, Daye Co., Huangshi Prefecture, Hubei Province, China
5. ^ Huangshi Daye Non-ferrous Metals Co., Ltd.,
6. ^ The Founding of Huangshi

External links

• Daye City People's Government (Chinese)