Jiangnan
Jiangnan is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of its delta. The region encompasses the city of Shanghai, the southern part of Jiangsu Province, the southeastern part of Anhui Province, the northern part of Jiangxi Province and the northern part of Zhejiang Province. The most important cities in the area include Anqing, Changzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Shaoxing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Wenzhou, Yangzhou and Zhenjiang.
For the former province, see Jiangnan Province. For other uses, see Jiangnan (disambiguation).Jiangnan
Jiangnan has long been regarded as one of the most prosperous regions in China due to its wealth in trade and very high human development.[1] Most people of the region speak Wu Chinese dialects as their native languages.
Etymology[edit]
The name Jiangnan is the pinyin romanization of the Standard Mandarin pronunciation of 江南, meaning "[Lands] South of the [Yangtze] River".[2] Although jiang (江) is now the common Chinese word for any large river, it was historically used in Ancient Chinese to refer specifically to the Yangtze River, which defines the Jiangnan region.[3]
In older and non-standard romanization systems, Jiangnan was historically written as Chiang-nan,[4] Kiangnan,[5] and Keang-nan[6] in English and other European languages.