Baofeng county, located in the central and western parts of Henan province, is 134 kilometers from Zhengzhou, the provincial capital city to the northeast. It is 30 kilometers to the seat of Pingdingshan city and 16 kilometers to Pingdingshan to the southeast. It is 143 kilometers to Nanyang, a famous historic and cultural city to the southwest. It is 141 kilometers to Luoyang, the capital city of nine dynasties, to the northwest. Baofeng county is an important hub of communications in the central and western parts of Henan province. It has a gross area of 722 square kilometers, including 12.7 square kilometers of urban areas.
Baofeng has a long history. People came to work and live there in the Paleolithic Age. In 1120, the second year under the reign of Emperor Huizong in the Song Dynasty, the emperor named the county Baofeng, because it had rich resources and flourishing businesses, including a distilled spirit brewery, official porcelain production and iron smelting. In 1643, the 16th year of Emperor Chongzhen, Li Zicheng renamed Baofeng Baozhou. The name was returned to Baofeng during the Qing Dynasty. Today Baofeng is a county under the jurisdiction of Pingdingshan. The county governs eight towns, four townships, one district office, and 320 administrative villages, with a total population of 480,000.
Baofeng has a long military history. It has developed commerce and trade. As a hub adjacent to the mountainous areas of western Henan and plains of central Henan, it is an important distribution center for agricultural and other products. Baofeng also has developed into a major hub of communications in the province.
Baofeng has 18 rivers that each have drainage basis more than 10 square kilometers in size. It has 17 large and medium-sized reservoirs, with a total capacity of 145.72 million cubic meters. It has 89.88 million cubic meters of underground water resources. Lizhuang township has natural mineral water resources that supply 2,800 tons of water every day.
Baofeng, located in a warm temperate zone, has a sub-humid continental monsoon climate, with four distinctive seasons. It is best known as dry and windy in spring, hot and rainy in summer, fresh and clear in autumn, and cold but seldom snowy in winter. It has an annual average temperature of 14.5 degrees Celsius, 769.6mm of precipitation and 223 million cubic meters of water resources.
Baofeng, a transition zone from the broad-leaved deciduous forests of North China to broad-leaved evergreen forests of central China, is suitable for multiple biological species to live and multiply. Therefore, the county has plentiful varieties of biological resources. According to a general survey in 1982, the county has 90 cultivated plant varieties, 290 wild plant varieties, 30 domestic animals, and 220 wild animals.
Baofeng has more than 20 varieties of rich mineral resources. It has 340 million tons of coal reserves, which are Group B quality coking coal. It has reserves of more than 83 million tons of bauxite, 500 million tons of purple sand clay, 600 million tons of limestone soil, 339.73 million tons of plaster, and 66.09 million tons of fire clay.
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