There are currently 1,429 counties in the country (data as of July 2020), of which 117 are ethnic autonomous counties.
Among these counties, there are several very special, they are integrated with the urban area, there is no independent county seat, and the first organs and municipal units of the entire county are concentrated together, which can be described as unique.
Cangxian County. Cangxian County is located in the southeast of Hebei Province and belongs to Cangzhou City. Although Cangxian County is surrounded by Cangzhou City, it does not set up an independent county seat, but sets up all levels of the county organs in Cangzhou City. This situation can be traced back to the Ming and Qing dynasties, when the pattern of prefectures and counties in the same city appeared, and the concept of attached prefectures and counties also came into being. With the establishment of the state in 1949 and the adjustment of administrative divisions, the phenomenon of attached prefectures has basically disappeared. However, there are still a few urban areas in the country that are in the same city as the county seat, and Cangxian and Cangzhou are one of them.
In 1928, with the end of the Northern Expedition, Zhili Province was renamed Hebei Province. Hebei Province has set up the Cangzhou Prefecture, which has a number of counties under its jurisdiction, including Cangxian County. In the early 60s, a considerable amount of oil resources were discovered in the western part of Cangxian County, and in order to develop these resources more effectively, the western part of Cangxian County was specially set aside to establish Cangzhou County-level City. Cangzhou county-level cities and Cangxian counties are under the management of Cangzhou Prefecture.
In 1993, Hebei Province underwent a regional restructuring, merging Cangzhou and Cangzhou into a new Cangzhou prefecture-level city. Since Cangzhou City was earlier divided from the county seat of Cangxian County, this led to the situation that the urban area was connected to the county seat. With the continuous expansion of the urban area of Cangzhou, the county seat of Cangxian County was gradually annexed. In the process, Cangxian gradually lost its county seat.
At present, the county seat of Cangxian County has been fully integrated into the urban area of Cangzhou. For the residents of the townships and towns below Cangxian County, going to the county seat is equivalent to entering the urban area, because the county**, county organs and other institutions at all levels are located in the urban area of Cangzhou. Despite this, most of the county offices are concentrated in the eastern part of the urban area, while the municipal government offices are located in the western part of the urban area. Although Cangxian County does not have its own county seat, its economic development is still quite prosperous, and it has always been among the best among the counties in the province.
Fushun County. Fushun County is located in the eastern part of Liaoning Province and is under the jurisdiction of Fushun City, with 8 townships under its jurisdiction. However, the administrative center of the county is not set up in the county, but is located on Xincheng Road in Shuncheng District, Fushun City, creating a unique situation of "having a county but no city" in Fushun County. This situation is the result of the fact that after the county was changed to a city, the urban area annexed the county seat, but the surrounding area was retained as a county. It is worth mentioning that the administrative center of Fushun County was not always located in the urban area, and was moved to Shiwen Town in 1969, but moved back to the main urban area of Fushun ten years later in 1979, and this arrangement is still maintained today.
The terrain of Fushun County is mostly mountainous and hilly, and only a few river valleys have long and narrow plains.
The county has eight townships, but there is no particularly prominent central town, and the county's population is only about 120,000. Considering the terrain constraints, even if the administrative center is moved to any town, it is difficult to have a large space for development. Therefore, it has become a more suitable choice for government agencies to continue to stay in the urban area.
Zezhou County. Zezhou County in the southeast of Shanxi Province is part of Jincheng City, with a total area of about 2,023 square kilometers and a total population of about 500,000. The geographical location of Zezhou is very important, it is an important passage connecting the Sanjin and the Central Plains, so it is known as "the barrier of the east of the river, the town of Xiong in the south of Jin".
Zezhou County completely surrounded Jincheng City from all directions on the map, Jincheng City occupied the main urban area, and the surrounding towns were placed under the jurisdiction of Zezhou County, so that Zezhou County almost disappeared from the map. In the past, the first organ of Zezhou County was located in the west of Jincheng City, and it coexisted with Jincheng City.
However, now Zezhou County is about to have its own county seat, and the county ** and some government agencies have moved to Jincun Town in the east of the city. It is foreseeable that the next few years will see the emergence of a new county seat in Zezhou.
Hotan County. Hotan County is located in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, and belongs to the Hotan region. This place is somewhat interesting because the administrative organs of the Hotan region, Hotan City and Hotan Prefecture are all located in the same city. Interestingly, both Hotan City and Hotan County belong to the same level of county-level cities.
Although the county seat of Hotan County is located in the urban area, its jurisdiction is very extensive. It extends from the Kunlun Mountain Glacier at the junction of Singapore and Tibet to the Taklamakan Desert in the north, with a wide difference in width from north to south, narrow in the north, with a total distance of up to 500 kilometers, crossing the western part of Hotan City. The county covers an area of more than 40,000 square kilometers and has a total population of about 350,000. The vast majority of the population is concentrated in the western part of the city of Hotan and along the banks of the Yulong Kashgar River.
Former Gollus Mongolian Autonomous County.
The former Guoerlus Mongolian Autonomous County, referred to as Qianguo County, is located in the northwest of Jilin Province and belongs to Songyuan City. The city of Songyuan and the former Guo County are in the same city, and although they are in the same city, a small area is slightly divided into the southeast of the city of Songyuan for the former Guo County, and this area becomes the county seat of the former Guo County. Interestingly, Songwon Railway Station is located near the boundary between the city and the county. For first-time visitors to Songwon, it may be confusing to see the signboard on the street that says Songwon City and Qianguo County for a while, especially because the signs are written in Mongolian and Chinese, which adds to the confusion.
Qianguo County is one of the three ethnic minority autonomous counties in Jilin Province, with a total area of about 7,000 square kilometers and a total population of about 600,000. This place has the reputation of "the hometown of China's horse-head qin". The name comes from the Mongolian word "Gollus", which means river, because it is located on the south bank of the Songhua River. There are many lakes in the county, among which Chagan Lake is one of the top ten freshwater lakes in China, the lakeside is full of green grass, wetlands are widely distributed, cattle and sheep are herded, Ao Bao towers, exudes a strong grassland Mongolian style. This place is also a famous fishery production base in Jilin Province, especially the winter fishing of Chagan Lake every winter, which is famous at home and abroad, attracting many domestic and foreign tourists to come for sightseeing.
Do you know any other examples of cities and counties in the same city?