Yixing

Yixing (simplified Chinese: 宜兴; traditional Chinese: 宜興; pinyin: Yíxīng) is a county-level city with a population of 1.24 million administrated under the prefecture-level city of Wuxi in southern Jiangsu province, People's Republic of China, and is part of the Yangtze River Delta. With active modern industry as the economical fundamentals, it is more famous for traditional Yixing clay and the pottery made from that—especially the "zisha"-style teapots. It is also famous in China for thousands of scholars and scientists born here, among whom there are 12 academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences and 13 academicians of Chinese Academy of Engineering.

History

Yixing county was established in 221 B.C.(Qin Dynasty) with the name of Yangxian(阳羡). Between 303 A.D. and 310 A.D., the local aristocrat Zhou Qi who was the eldest son of General Zhou Chu, suppressed rebellions three times. And then Yangxian was renamed Yixing( 义兴,meaning loyalty and prosperity ) to honor Zhou Qi. In 976 A.D.,Yixing(义兴) was renamed Yixing(宜兴) as a consequence of avoiding the use of the King's name (Zhao Kuangyi, Emperor Taizong of Song).