Chāngyì

Chāngyì lies on the low, open plain of Shāndōng, with a recorded administrative history of more than twenty-two hundred years. Its name combines the characters for “prosperous” and “city.” Under the Qín dynasty the area was the county of Dūchāng, which kept its identity through several changes in regional government before being renamed Chāngyì in 962 during the Northern Sòng. Flat, cultivable ground made grain, legumes and dense village settlement the basis of local life, and roads and local markets linked the villages together.

In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods the locality belonged to the wider world of Qí and its neighbours, and tradition links it with Yànzǐ and Sūn Bīn as estates or places of activity. Dūchāng and Chāngyì therefore represent two stages of one long administrative continuity rather than separate settlements.