Which City Does Zhangjiajie Belong To?
"Which city does Zhangjiajie belong to?" That's a question a netizen friend asked me a few days ago. I was speechless at the time. As someone from Zhangjiajie, I felt inexplicably indignant, and then I sternly called him out: "Zhangjiajie is, after all, a filming location for Avatar. Such a famous place is naturally a city itself, ah~ what do you mean by that—insulting Zhangjiajie for being small?" Then he felt extremely ashamed and apologized to me repeatedly...
"Which city does Zhangjiajie belong to?" That's a question a netizen friend asked me a few days ago. I was speechless at the time. As someone from Zhangjiajie, I felt inexplicably indignant, and then I sternly called him out: "Zhangjiajie is, after all, a filming location for Avatar. Such a famous place is naturally a city itself, ah~ what do you mean by that—insulting Zhangjiajie for being small?" Then he felt extremely ashamed and apologized to me repeatedly. Seeing that his attitude was very sincere, I patiently explained to him: Zhangjiajie is a prefecture-level city, with Sangzhi County, Cili County, Wulingyuan District, and Yongding District under it. Zhangjiajie's predecessor was Dayong County; it was upgraded to a prefecture-level city to develop tourism. It was upgraded in 1994.
Actually, I don't know these things too clearly either. I only knew that Zhangjiajie used to be called Dayong County and later changed its name to Zhangjiajie City, so I went on Baidu to look up the question my clueless netizen friend asked: "Which city does Zhangjiajie belong to?" If I hadn't checked, I wouldn't have known; once I checked, I was shocked—it turns out other clueless people had asked this question too.
I went to the most professional Baidu search engine and, with excitement, typed the three characters "Dayong County."
In the second year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1369 AD), Cili Prefecture was downgraded and changed to Dayong County, under Lizhou. In 1913 it belonged to Wuling Dao; in 1916 it was assigned to Chenyuan Dao; in October 1949 it belonged to Yongshun Prefecture; after August 1952 it was placed under the jurisdiction of the Xiangxi Miao Autonomous Region and the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture. In 1988, the prefecture-level city of Dayong was established. On April 4, 1990, with the approval of the State Council, Dayong City was renamed Zhangjiajie City, governing the two districts of Yongding and Wulingyuan and the two counties of Cili and Sangzhi.
After reading this, I felt like I'd learned something again—so that's the origin of Dayong County. After searching Dayong County, I then looked up "Zhangjiajie City":
Zhangjiajie is a prefecture-level city under the jurisdiction of Hunan Province, China. It is located in northwestern Hunan, in the middle and upper reaches of the Lishui River, in the hinterland of the Wuling Mountains, and is one of China's most important tourist cities. In September 1982, Zhangjiajie became China's first national forest park. In August 1988, Wulingyuan was included in the second batch of 40 key scenic and historic interest areas in China; in 1992, the Wulingyuan Natural Scenic Area, composed of the three major scenic areas of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Suoxiyu Scenic Area, and Tianzi Mountain Scenic Area, was inscribed by UNESCO on the World Natural Heritage List.
Overall, Zhangjiajie is vast in territory and rich in resources, but the urban area isn't big—running a loop around the city on foot takes only about an hour. Still, Zhangjiajie's development is getting better and better; as someone from Zhangjiajie, I've watched it change all along.
Zhangjiajie: the urban area has the flavor of the urban area, and the scenic area has the elegance of the scenic area. I wish everyone who comes to visit Zhangjiajie a good mood. Finally, I hope no one will ever ask which city Zhangjiajie belongs to again—