Guāngzé

Guangze occupies a mountain basin in northwestern Fujian, on the southwestern side of the Wuyi range near Jiangxi. Its county seat, Hangchuan, stands at the meeting of the Xixi and Beixi streams. These valleys opened a passage through a landscape of enclosing ridges, linking the upper Futun River country with the Fu River basin beyond the provincial boundary.

The settlement's administrative ancestry reaches back to Yangning town, established in 624 and renamed Caiyan in 958. In 979 the Northern Song separated northern Shaowu County to create Guangze County under Shaowu Military Prefecture. By the Yuan period it was therefore already an established county centre. Its name, seat and territorial framework remained remarkably stable through the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Shanguan, a pass established in 880 on the Shaowu–Nancheng border, helped make the Nancheng–Shanguan–Shaowu road a principal route between Jiangxi and Fujian. Guangze's historical importance lay in this combination of enduring county institutions and a mountain corridor joining two river systems.