Āndōng

Āndōng is the old name of the Lianshui area in northern Jiangsu, in the low plain north of the lower Huai River. It lies in a broad transition zone of fields, waterways and dispersed market towns rather than on an exposed sea coast, and its position near the Huai and the Grand Canal corridor tied it to the movement of grain, salt and travellers between the larger cities of northern Jiangsu.

Under the Yuan the place was an Āndōng prefecture-level zhou, and in the Ming it was reduced to a county under Huai’an Prefecture. The surrounding plain is productive lowland with a continental seasonal range: summers are hot and humid, and winters can turn sharply cold.