Jilin, short for Jilinwula, means along the Songhua River in Manchu language. The Songhua River being the main branch of the Heilongjiang River springs from Heavenly Pond in Changbai Mountain. As the largest river in Jilin Province, the Songhua River catches the hinterland of the Northeast Plain of China and irrigates thousands of fields. It runs to bring the alluvia which constitute the Songliao Plain, ranges from the middle to the west part of the province, joining the Songnen Plain of Heilongjiang Province and the Liaohe Plain of Liaoning Province.
Located in the center of Northeast China, Jilin Province shares borders with Russia and Korea in the southeast, adjacent to Heilongjiang province in the north, the Inner Mongolia in the west and Liaoning Province in the south. It total area is 191,000 square kilometers and has a population of over 26 million, including more than 40 minorities, Hans, Korean, Manchu, Hui, Mongolian and Xibe, to name just a few. It tilts from southeast to northwest, from the east to the west, there are four ecological regions ranging from the virgin forests in Changbai Mountain, the second-class vegetation in lowland hills, the Songliao Plain to the prairie and wetland in the far west. The province has 29 nature reserve areas. The well-reserved environments boast diversified, systematic and recoverable features.
Resources in Jilin
Jilin province is "the hometown of black lands", of which the arable fields occupy a space of 4,005,000 hectares and account for 21.1% of the total lands. The flat and fertile Songliao Plain in its central area, has long established as "the golden corn strip" and "the hometown of soybeans", is in China an important production base of food. Jilin is also an important base in forest industry and a place rich in nonmetal mineral resources. The nonmetal mineral resources have been proven up involve 83 kinds, in which the reserves of oil shale, diatomite, grammite, magnesium, molybdenum and crude oil come out in front of the country. It also is one of "the Eight Grazing Districts" of China and one of the main areas producing merchandise cattle and fuzz hair sheep. There abounds in wildlife. The Changbai Mountain is an important wild species gene bank and base of wild medicinal materials of China. The ginseng, sable fur and pilose antler boast “the three treasures of northeast China”. The output of ginseng products is at the top place across the country.
Jilin province is rich in and advantaged in tourist resources with varied natural scenery and distinctive cultural relics. The state-listed Changbai Mountain scenic area with soothing and relaxing vista, boasts "the grand mountain holds the Heavenly Pond and the sea of forests hides treasures", is a wonderful land attracts people from everywhere to focus attention upon. The attractive Jilin Wusong (a spectacle formed by the ice bloom gathering in the branches and leaves of trees due to low temperature), with Yangtze Gorges, Guilin landscape and Yunnan stone forests together is called the China four wonders in nature. And if you pay a visit there you will feel as if you were visited by the dream or presenting a fairyland. In recent years, the frontier and foreign country tourism and ecotourism represented by paying visit to the ice, snow, forests and wetlands become the most attractive tourism products.