Xīnxīng

Xinxing occupies a basin on the central Yunnan plateau, surrounded by hills and linked to the roads leading toward Kunming and the south. Its history as an administrative settlement reaches back to the Yuan dynasty, when a military colony was established here in 1293. The Ming and Qing retained Xinxing as a county, giving the basin a continuing place in the government of the surrounding countryside. Fields in the basin and settlements on its margins formed the setting for this long-lived local centre.