Sweden won an eighth women’s bandy world title in Chengde in January 2018, on naturally frozen lake ice inside a UNESCO World Heritage palace garden, at a tournament where organisers had aimed to attract twelve nations and eight took part.
二零一八年一月,瑞典队在承德夺得第八个女子班迪球世界冠军,比赛在联合国教科文组织世界遗产所在的皇家园林内、一片天然结冰的湖面上进行;组委会原本希望吸引十二个国家参赛,最终只有八支球队到场。
The first bandy match ever played in China was organised in Chengde in January 2015, between the Russian and Swedish top clubs Baykal-Energiya and Sandviken, and the city was one of the initiators of the China Bandy Federation, founded in December 2014. Within weeks, a Chinese national team played its first international, losing 2–3 to Mongolia in Khabarovsk on 1 February 2015 and then beating Somalia 11–1 a few days later; the women’s team made its world championship debut in 2016, losing every match without scoring, before beating debutants Estonia and Switzerland at home in Chengde in 2018.
中国境内的第一场班迪球比赛,于二零一五年一月在承德举办,对阵双方是俄罗斯与瑞典的顶级俱乐部贝加尔能源队和桑德维肯队;承德也是二零一四年十二月成立的中国班迪球协会的发起城市之一。数周之内,中国国家队便打响了首场国际比赛,二零一五年二月一日在哈巴罗夫斯克以二比三负于蒙古队,数日后又以十一比一击败索马里队;中国女队于二零一六年首次亮相世界锦标赛,所有比赛均未能进球,直到二零一八年在承德主场作战时,击败了首次参赛的爱沙尼亚队与瑞士队。
According to insidethegames.biz, the Federation of International Bandy awarded the 2018 women’s championship to Chengde at its congress in Sandviken, the Swedish town whose club had played in that first Chengde match, a decision seen as a major step forward for bandy’s Olympic hopes with Beijing due to host the 2022 Winter Games.
据insidethegames.biz报道,国际班迪球联合会在瑞典桑德维肯召开的代表大会上,将二零一八年女子世界锦标赛的举办权授予承德;桑德维肯正是当年在承德首场比赛中出战的瑞典俱乐部的所在地。这一决定被视为班迪球争取进入奥运会的重要一步,当时北京正筹备二零二二年冬奥会。
The Summer Capital of Temples and Hunting Parties
寺庙与围猎并存的夏都
The setting was the Chengde Mountain Resort, begun in 1703 under the Kangxi Emperor so that the Qing court could escape Beijing’s summer heat. Around it stand the Eight Outer Temples, part of a group of twelve Buddhist temples built around the resort during the Qing dynasty, of which the eight administered through the Lifan Yuan, the office that managed relations with Mongol and Tibetan peoples, became collectively known by that name; the largest, Putuo Zongcheng, completed in 1771, was modelled on the Potala Palace in Lhasa.
比赛场地是承德避暑山庄,始建于一七零三年康熙年间,供清廷躲避北京的夏季酷暑。山庄周围矗立着外八庙,这是清代围绕山庄修建的十二座佛教寺庙中的一部分,其中由负责管理蒙古与藏族事务的理藩院统辖的八座,合称”外八庙”;规模最大的普陀宗乘之庙,建成于一七七一年,仿照拉萨布达拉宫而建。
The resort and its temples were never simply a summer retreat. According to UNESCO, the resort was built as a base from which to strengthen administration in the border regions, and each summer and autumn the emperors handled military and government affairs there, received leaders of ethnic minority groups and foreign envoys, and went north to the Mulan imperial hunting ground. Designated by the Kangxi Emperor in 1681 and covering more than 10,000 square kilometres, it hosted 105 imperial autumn hunts between 1681 and 1820, an institution historians have described as training the military and pacifying the frontier vassals.
避暑山庄及其周边的寺庙,从来不只是一处避暑之地。据联合国教科文组织介绍,山庄是为加强边疆地区治理而建的据点;每逢夏秋两季,皇帝们在此处理军政事务,接见少数民族首领与外国使节,并由此北上前往木兰围场举行秋狝。木兰围场由康熙皇帝于一六八一年划定,面积逾一万平方公里,一六八一年至一八二零年间共举行了一百零五次皇家秋狝,史家称这一制度为”习武绥藩”。
In September 1793, the Qianlong Emperor received Lord Macartney, leader of the first British embassy to China, in a grand tent in the resort’s Garden of Ten Thousand Trees. After considerable debate over protocol, Macartney knelt on one knee rather than performing the full prostration Qing ceremony demanded, and the embassy returned without the trade concessions it had sought.
一七九三年九月,乾隆皇帝在避暑山庄万树园的大帐内,接见了首个英国访华使团的团长马戛尔尼勋爵。经过一番围绕礼仪的激烈争论,马戛尔尼最终行单膝下跪之礼,而非清廷礼制所要求的全套叩拜,使团最终并未获得其所期望的通商特权,无功而返。
Seven Priests for a Diocese Created in 2018
二零一八年设立的教区,辖七位神父、十二个堂区
Pope Francis erected the Diocese of Chengde on 22 September 2018, in the context of the provisional agreement between the Holy See and China on the appointment of bishops. According to the Holy See Press Office, its territory matches the civil boundaries of Chengde city, covers 39,519 square kilometres and was taken from parts of the existing Jehol/Jinzhou and Chifeng dioceses, with the Church of Jesus the Good Shepherd in Shuangluan as its cathedral.
教宗方济各于二零一八年九月二十二日,在中国与罗马教廷就主教任命签署临时协议的背景下,设立了承德教区。据罗马教廷新闻办公室介绍,该教区辖区与承德市行政区划范围一致,面积三万九千五百一十九平方公里,系从原有的热河(锦州)教区与赤峰教区各划出一部分而成,以双滦区的善牧堂为主教座堂。
It serves about 25,000 Catholics, roughly 0.7 percent of the 3.7 million people living within its boundaries, in 12 parishes with seven priests. Its bishop, Joseph Guo Jincai, had been ordained without a papal mandate in 2010, leaving him outside full communion with Rome, until Pope Francis readmitted Guo and the other remaining bishops in that position to full ecclesial communion in September 2018.
该教区约有二万五千名天主教徒,约占辖区内三百七十万人口的百分之零点七,分布在十二个堂区,由七位神父服务。教区主教郭金才于二零一零年未经教宗任命即被祝圣为主教,此后未与罗马教廷保持完全共融;二零一八年九月,教宗方济各重新接纳郭金才及其他处于类似境况的主教,与教会恢复完全共融。
According to the city’s own 2024 statistical communiqué, Chengde’s GDP reached ¥196.26 billion that year, up 5.9 percent; the permanent population stood at 3.2857 million, down 16,500 on the year before, with 17,900 births against 29,500 deaths.
据该市二零二四年统计公报显示,当年承德市GDP达一千九百六十二点六亿元,同比增长百分之五点九;常住人口为三百二十八点五七万人,较上年减少一点六五万人,全年出生人口一点七九万人,死亡人口二点九五万人。
Getting to Chengde means a high-speed train from Beijing Chaoyang station to Chengde South that, since 1 July 2025, takes as little as 49 minutes, down from 52 when the line opened in January 2021.
前往承德,可从北京朝阳站乘坐高铁直达承德南站;自二零二五年七月一日起,最短仅需四十九分钟,此前自二零二一年一月开通时为五十二分钟。
The former Rehe Province, centred on Chengde and abolished in 1955, took its name from the Hot River, a stream that rises from a spring in the north-east corner of the Mountain Resort’s lake district and, according to the Beijing tourism website Visit Beijing, passes through four of its lakes before leaving by a sluice into the Wulie River; its winter water temperature is about 8 degrees Celsius, and sources variously give its length as anything from 90 to more than 700 metres.
一九五五年撤销的原热河省以承德为中心,其名称源自”热河”这条小河。它发源于避暑山庄湖区东北角的一眼泉水,据北京旅游网站Visit Beijing介绍,河水流经山庄内四座湖泊后,经水闸汇入武烈河,冬季水温约为八摄氏度;关于其长度,不同资料给出的数字从九十米到七百多米不等。
