Jiangnan

Jiangnan, also romanized as Kiangnan, Chiang-nan, and Jiang Nan, 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. 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. Most people of the region speak Wu Chinese dialects as their native languages. Name The name Jiangnan is the atonal pinyin romanization of the Standard Mandarin pronunciation of the Chinese name , meaning "[Lands] South of the [Yangtze] River". (Although is now the common Chinese word for any large river, it was previously used in Ancient Chinese as the specific name of the Yangtze, with other use spreading from there.) Using other romanization systems, the same Chinese name was also written Chiang-nan, Chiangnan, Kiang-nan, Kiangnan, and Keang-nan in English and other European languages. History