Nángōng

Nángōng lies on the plains of southern Hebei and takes its name from Nangong Kuo, one of the Eight Gentlemen of the early Zhou, who held it as his fief. The Han made it a county. In the Song it was merged into Xinhe in 1052 and restored in 1073, and in 1232 the Mongols again split the neighbouring county of Xinhe from it, leaving the district with the borders it kept in later centuries.

Within the county stood the Putong Temple and its pagoda, reputed to be the earliest Buddhist pagoda in China and founded under the Eastern Han. Under the Ming, Nangong was a county of Jizhou in the northern capital region; in 1724 the Qing made Jizhou a directly administered department.