Tōngchuān

Tongchuan was the county seat of Dazhou in the river valleys of northeastern Sichuan. Known in earlier centuries as Tongzhou, the city lay among the hills on routes towards the mountains and the wider Sichuan Basin. Under the Ming, Tongchuan County was absorbed into Dazhou in 1376; the place was made a prefecture again in 1514. In 1728 the Qing raised Dazhou to a directly administered prefecture.