Hechuan

Hechuan, Wade-Giles romanization Ho-ch’uan, former county-level city, Chongqing municipality, south-central China. In 2006 it was incorporated into Chongqing city, becoming a district of that entity. Hechuan district is situated some 30 miles (50 km) northwest of central Chongqing at the confluence of three major rivers draining the eastern part of the Sichuan Basin: the Qu, Jialing, and Fu rivers.

Early in the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce), it was a county named Dianjiang. Renamed Shijing in the 5th or 6th century and then Shizhao during the Song dynasty (960–1279), it has been called Hechuan since 1912. In 1992 the county was designated a city. When Chongqing was separated from Sichuan province and established as a province-level municipality in 1997, Hechuan was also set off from Sichuan and became a part of Chongqing. It retained that status until its merger with Chongqing in 2006.

Hechuan district boasts rich mineral resources and good land and water communications. It was until comparatively recent times a major port, with goods transported down the tributary streams in small craft being transshipped to larger vessels for transport to Chongqing. However, the opening of the Qu River to navigation by small steamers as far as Nanchong and the completion of highways from Nanchong to Chongqing, Chengdu, and Wanxian took away much of Hechuan’s trade, and its former commercial prosperity has declined. It nonetheless remains an important market in a highly productive area and has developed a variety of small-scale industries, including grain milling, egg processing, and textile weaving. It also produces fertilizer and electric power from both coal-fired thermal and hydroelectric plants.