Place:Heilongjiang, People's Republic of China

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Heilongjiang, formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country. The province is bordered by Jilin to the south and Inner Mongolia to the west. It also shares a border with Russia (Amur Oblast, Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Primorsky Krai and Zabaykalsky Krai) to the north and east. The capital and the largest city of the province is Harbin. Among Chinese provincial-level administrative divisions, Heilongjiang is the sixth-largest by total area, the 15th-most populous, and the second-poorest by GDP per capita.

The province takes its name (which in Chinese means "Black Dragon River") from the Heilong River (Chinese name of the Amur), which marks the border between the People's Republic of China and Russia. Heilongjiang contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the junction of the Amur and Ussuri rivers).

Heilongjiang has significant agricultural production, and raw materials, such as timber, oil and coal.

History

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Ancient Chinese records and other sources state that Heilongjiang was inhabited by people such as the Sushen, Buyeo, the Mohe, Balhae, and the Khitan. Mongolic Donghu people lived in Inner Mongolia and the western part of Heilongjiang. Some names are Manchu or Mongolian. The eastern portion of Heilongjiang was ruled by the kingdom of Balhae between the 7th and 10th centuries. The Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115–1234) that subsequently ruled much of north China arose within the borders of modern Heilongjiang.

Heilongjiang as an administrative entity was created in 1683, during the Kangxi era of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, from the northwestern part of the Jilin province. This Heilongjiang Province only included the western part of today's Heilongjiang Province, and was under the supervision of the General of Heilongjiang (Sahaliyan Ula i Jiyanggiyūn) (the title is also translated as the Military Governor of Heilongjiang; jiyanggiyūn is the Manchu reading of the Chinese word  ; "military leader, general" and is cognate with Japanese shōgun), whose power extended, according to the Treaty of Nerchinsk, as far north as the Stanovoy Mountains. The eastern part of what's today Heilongjiang remained under the supervision of the General of Jilin (Girin i Jiyanggiyūn), whose power reached the Sea of Japan. These areas deep in Manchuria were closed off to Han Chinese migration.

The original seat of the Military Governor of Heilongjiang, as established in 1683, was in Heilongjiang City (also known as Aigun or Heihe, or, in Manchu, Saghalien Ula), located on the Amur River. However, already in 1690 the seat of the governor was transferred to Nenjiang (Mergen) on the Nen River, and, in 1699, further south to Qiqihar. According to modern historians, the moves may have been driven by supply considerations: Nenjiang and Qiqihar are connected by a convenient waterway (Nen River) with southern Manchuria, whereas accessing Aigun (Heihe) would require either sailing all the way down the Sungari River until its confluence with the Amur and then up the Amur to Heihe, or using a portage over the Lesser Xing'an Mountains between the Nen River valley and the Amur valley. An additional advantage of Qiqihar may have been its location at the junction of a northbound road (to Nenjiang) and a westbound one (to Mongolia), enabling its garrison to defend both against the Russians and the Ölöt Mongols.

Little Qing Military presence existed north of Aigun. According to the 18th- and early-20th-century European sources, and the reports of the Russians in the 1850s, the farthest Qing "advance guard" post was at Ulusu-Modon (Ulussu-Mudan) ( Wūlǔsūmùdān), near the Amur River's famous S-shaped meander. (The post was on the left (north) bank of the river, lost to the Russians in 1860.)

In 1858 and 1860, the Qing government was forced to give up all land beyond the Amur and Ussuri Rivers to the Russian Empire, cutting off the Qing Empire from the Sea of Japan and giving Heilongjiang its present northern and eastern borders. At the same time, Manchuria was opened to Han Chinese migration by the Qing government. By the early twentieth century, due to the Chuang Guandong, the Han Chinese had become the dominant ethnic group in the region.

In 1931, Japanese forces invaded Heilongjiang. In 1932, the Japanese completed their conquest of the province, which became part of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.

In 1945, Japanese forces in Manchuria were defeated by the Soviet Army. During the Chinese Civil War, Soviet forces aided the Chinese communists. Heilongjiang became the first province to be completely controlled by the communists and Harbin the first major city to be controlled by them.

At the beginning of communist rule, Heilongjiang included only the western portion of the present-day province, and had its capital at Qiqihar. The remaining area was the province of Songjiang; its capital was Harbin. In 1954, these two provinces were merged into present-day Heilongjiang. During the Cultural Revolution, Heilongjiang was also expanded to include Hulunbuir League and some other areas previously in Inner Mongolia; this has since mostly been reversed.

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