Population 873,859 (2000) | Province Hubei Area 1,460 km2 | |
 | ||
Country Peoples Republic of China | ||
Map of Daye, Hubei
Daye (Chinese: 大冶; pinyin: Dàyě) is a county-level city in eastern Hubei province, China. It is under the administration of the Huangshi prefecture-level city.
Contents
Before the adoption of the Hanyu Pinyin, the name of the city was often transcribed in English as Tayeh.
As it is usually the case with county-level cities, Daye includes both an urban core and a fair amount of rural land in all directions, with smaller townships (zhen) such as Dajipu (大箕铺). According to the Fifth Population Census of China (2000), the entire county-level city of Daye had 813,600 residents, with a population density of 558 people per square kilometer.
The Daye Lake south of Daye's urban core is surrounded by parks and fishing ponds, and is a popular place for recreation.
For a traveler who goes on G316 from Wuhan toward the south-east, Daye appears as a border between the more urban and more rural parts of the province. Daye sits on the south-eastern border of the heavily industrialized Wuhan/Ezhou/Huangshi metropolitan area; south of it, the much more rural Yangxin County begins.
Economy
Daye is an industrial city, a center of mining and metallurgy, both ferrous and non-ferrous; its name means 'developing a prosperous smelting industry' (大兴炉冶).
Copper mining and smelting was conducted at Daye's Tonglüshan Mine (铜绿山, 30°04′52″N 114°56′07″E) as early as the Spring and Autumn period (6th century B.C.E.), if not earlier. Tonglüshan Mine is located just southwest of the modern city, and now has a museum.
Although such copper-containing minerals as malachite and azurite are found here, the local ores are richer in iron than in copper, and the modern Daye is better known for its iron ore mining and processing.
Among the major employers is Huangshi Daye Non-ferrous Metals Co., Ltd.
Transportation
Daye was the junction of the Wuhan-Daye Railway (completed in 1958) and Daye-Shahejie Railway (completed in 1987), which merged in 1989 to form the Wuhan–Jiujiang Railway. Huangshi Railway Station, which is the main passenger station for the entire Huangshi metropolitan area, is located within Daye's administrative borders, about 6 km north of downtown Daye (30°9′23″N 114°56′5″E). It has fairly frequent service, with travel time to Wuhan being typically around 1 hour on a high-speed D-series train, or 1.5 hours on a "conventional" passenger train.
Daye is served by the Wuhan–Huangshi Intercity Railway, part of the future Wuhan Metropolitan Area Intercity Railway, which opened in 2014. The new Daye North Railway Station, located north-east of Daye's main urban area (30.125216°N 114.995895°E / 30.125216; 114.995895), serves as that line's terminal. It has fairly frequent service (about hourly) to the Wuhan Railway Station. Construction work is carried out to extent this rail line beyond Daye; this will become the Wuhan–Jiujiang Passenger Railway (estimated completion date, 2017).
Daye is also served by the China National Highway 106 (which coincides in this area with China National Highway 316).
History
Daye County existed on and off for centuries; as recently as the World War II period, it included much of today's prefecture-level city of Huangshi. This means that pre-1949 references to a location in "Daye" or "Tayeh" may refer to anywhere within today's Huangshi.
Daye County was re-established on June 1, 1962, on a rather smaller scale, as part of Huangshi City. On February 18, 1994 Daye was converted into a county-level city, still within the prefecture-level city of Huangshi.
Dialect
The speech of Daye and the adjacent counties farther south (toward the Jiangxi border) has been traditionally characterized as the Daye dialect, part of the Datong dialect group of Gan Chinese.