Zhoushan

 Zhoushan ; formerly transliterated as Chusan, is a prefecture-level city in northeastern Zhejiang province of Eastern China. One of the two prefecture-level cities of the People's Republic of China consisting solely of islands (the other is Sansha in Hainan, however its territory is in dispute), it lies across the mouth of the Hangzhou Bay, and is separated from the mainland by a narrow body of water. On 8 July 2011 the central government approved Zhoushan's as Zhoushan Archipelago New Area a state-level new area. At the 2010 census, its population was 1,121,261 whom 842,989 lived in the built-up area made of Dinghai and Putuo counties.

History

The archipelago was inhabited 6,000 years ago during the Neolithic by people of the Hemudu culture. During the Spring and Autumn period, Zhoushan was called Yongdong (甬东), referring to its location east of the Yong River, and belonged to the State of Yue. The fishermen and sailors who inhabited the islands often engaged in piracy and became recruits for uprisings against the central authorities. At the time of the Eastern Jin dynasty, Zhoushan Islands served as the base for Sun En's rebellion. Sun En, an adherent of the Taoist sect Way of the Five Pecks of Rice, launched his rebellion around the year 400 and was defeated by Jin forces in 402. In 863, the Japanese Buddhist monk Hui'e (慧锷; Egaku) and a Putuoshan local Zhang-shi (张氏) placed a statue of Guanyin at Chaoyin Cave (潮音洞) that would later become a popular tourist and pilgrim destination. During the Ming dynasty, especially between the years 1530 and 1560, Japanese and Chinese pirates used Zhoushan as one of their principal bases from which they launched attacks as far as Nanjing; "the whole Chinese coast from northern Shandong to western Guangdong was ravaged to a distance of sixty miles inland."

Zhoushan (disambiguation)

Zhoushan is a city in Zhejiang, China.

Zhoushan may also refer to: