About Anhui

Set beside one of China’s great freshwater lakes, yet increasingly known for chips, cars and quantum dreams, Hefei is the sort of city that has spent just enough time being underestimated to turn reinvention into a civic habit there today. 坐落在中国最大淡水湖之一旁边的合肥，如今却越来越因芯片、汽车与量子梦想而被人提起。这是一座曾长期被低估的城市，也正因此，它把自我更新变成了一种城市习惯，甚至像一种日常本能。 For centuries, Hefei was better...

Crossing the Yangtze into Wuhu, many would not at first suspect they are entering one of Anhui’s most quietly consequential cities; a place where rice, river trade, old foreign links and modern industry have learned, rather neatly, to live together over a very long...

Silvery by nickname and stubborn by history, Bengbu still carries the feel of a city pulled into being by water, pearls and railways; yet beneath that old industrial skin, the so-called Pearl City is busy teaching itself newer tricks. 以“珠城”为名的蚌埠，骨子里却并不柔弱。这座城市像是被河水、珍珠和铁路一路拉扯着长大的；而在那层旧工业气质之下，它如今也正悄悄学会一些更新的本事。 The name tells the first part...

Smoke-blackened in memory yet brighter in ambition, Huainan in Anhui Province is the sort of city that catches people leaning on old assumptions; file it away as coal country and it answers with tofu, tombs, philosophy and the stubborn energy of reinvention. 在人们的旧印象里，淮南总带着煤灰的颜色；可在今天，它又亮出了另一面。就在你以为这里不过是一座煤城时，它却端出豆腐、楚墓、哲思，以及一种不肯停下来的再造劲头。 Set in the...

Steel-hearted at first glance yet softer on second look, Ma’anshan in Anhui Province is a city that lives in two registers at once; one forged by blast furnaces and river docks, the other by poems, legends and Nanjing breathing just over the border. 乍看之下，马鞍山像是一座钢铁气很重的城市；再看一眼，又会发现它柔软得出人意料。这里同时说着两种语言；一种来自炉火与码头，另一种来自诗歌、传说，以及省界那头几乎贴身而来的南京。 Set on...

Huaibei arrives in the imagination as a coal city, blackened and blunt, but the real place in northern Anhui is stranger and brighter; it sits where Jiangsu, Henan and Anhui meet, carries more than 4,000 years of history and keeps finding new ways to...

Fresh along the lower Yangtze, Tongling still feels like a city built from hammer blows, river wind and the steady pull of ore from the earth. It is smaller than many of Anhui’s better-known neighbours; yet it carries a heavier story than its size...

Southern Anhui is characterised by the lower Yangtze, where Anqing carries an easy river calm that hides how much history sits under its streets. It is a port city, a theatre town and an old industrial base; yet it still feels curious, not fixed. 长江下游的安庆，带着一种看似从容的江城气息，却把厚重历史藏在街巷之下。它是港口城市、戏曲之城，也是老工业基地；可它并不显得停滞，反而始终带着好奇和变化。 According...

Steep peaks still dominate the horizon here, and that is the point. Huangshan is one of those rare cities where the mountain is not just a backdrop but the main character; the rest of the place has spent centuries learning how to live with...

Chuzhou does not need to shout to be noticed. It sits on the edge of Anhui, looking east towards Jiangsu and the wider pull of the Yangtze River Delta; yet it still keeps the manners of a city that knows its own story. 滁州不需要大声喧哗也能被看见。它位于安徽东部，向东望去是江苏和更大的长三角；但它仍保留着一种清楚知道自己故事的城市气质。 That story...

Fuyang sits in the north-west of Anhui, as broad as a map and busier than many outsiders expect. It has the feel of a city built on distance, yet also one that has learned to use that distance well; plain land, river land, market...

Suzhou sits in northern Anhui with a very practical kind of confidence. It is close to the border with Jiangsu, linked to the wider plain around it and shaped by land, rail and trade rather than by dramatic scenery alone. That has always given...

West Anhui’s Lu'an sits where the Dabie Mountains begin to soften into hills and plains. It is a large city with a practical feel; the kind of place shaped less by display than by land, water, farming and the roads that bind them together. 皖西的六安位于大别山由峻峭转向丘陵和平原的过渡地带。它是一座体量很大的城市，气质却很务实；这里的底色不是张扬，而是土地、水系、农业，以及把一切连起来的道路。 The...

North-west Anhui’s Bozhou does not lean on glamour. It leans on trade, herbs, old streets and a very practical sense of where it sits. The city is large, flat and busy; a place where land, markets and movement still shape daily life. 亳州不靠光鲜取胜。它更依赖商贸、药材、老街，以及一种非常务实的地理意识。这座城市面积大、地势平、节奏忙；土地、市场和流动，至今仍在塑造它的日常。 Bozhou is one...

Chizhou sits in south-west Anhui and does not try to be everything at once. It is a city of hills, river valleys and mountain tourism; a place where geography still matters, and where Jiuhuashan gives the city its strongest name. 池州位于安徽西南部，它并不试图面面俱到。这里有山、有河谷，也有山地旅游；地理条件至今仍然重要，而九华山则是这座城市最响亮的名字。 The city covers 8,399 square...

Xuancheng sits in south-east Anhui with a very clear outline. It borders Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which has long made it both a gateway and a crossroads. It is a city that looks outward, but still keeps a strong local centre of gravity. 宣城位于安徽东南部，轮廓非常清晰。它与江苏、浙江接壤，这也让它长期既像门户，也像交汇点。这是一座注视外部世界的城市，但依然保持着很强的地方重心。 The city covers...