The winding Ao River is also called the Qinglong River (t青龍江,s青龙江,Qīnglóng jiāng) by locals on the south bank of the river,[4] after the Azure Dragon of Chinese mythology. This gave its name to the village of Longjiang (t龍江村,s龙江村,Lóngjiāng cūn, "Dragon River"). In 1982, Longjiang was joined with nearby Yanjiang (沿江村,Yánjiāng cūn, "Village upon the River") under the name Yanjiang Port Area (t沿江港區,s沿江港区,Yánjiāng gǎngqū),[5] but because this could be misunderstood as "a port area upon the river" instead of as a proper name it was soon renamed the Longjiang Port Area (t龍江港區,s龙江港区,Lóngjiāng gǎngqū).[6] When the port was elevated to town status the next year, Chen Junqiu—its chief official—renamed it Longgang (t龍港鎮,s龙港镇,Lóngjiāng zhèn) as a blend of "Longjiang" and "Port Area".[5]
History
The villages of Longjiang and Yanjiang were selected as the location of a new seaport after the establishment of Cangnan County in 1981,[5] during China's Opening Up Period. When this was publicly announced in February 1982, the people of the county seat at Lingxi began protesting against the decision out of fear that Cangnan's county government would be relocated to the new port. They even beat some of the Communist Party officials from Wenzhou responsible for the decision.[7] The new port area was promoted to town status in 1983,[5] incorporating another three nearby villages, but Lingxi was left as the county seat.
In 1984, the No. 1 Document of China's State Council provided that "farmers who can live self-sufficiently can be given the hukou of city and town dwellers". Longgang quickly opened its hukou to any farmers who bought land to construct new houses or who owned businesses in the town.[8] Within a month, more than 3000 farmers registered for the town's hukou. Its population continued to boom as more people came in from the countryside, reaching 40,000 by 1989, and it became a center of the Chinese printing industry. The town began appealing for city status in 1987 and started urbanizing reforms in 1996. By 2016, the China Business Network described it as "probably the largest town in China".[9] After final approval by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Zhejiang's provincial government finally elevated it to county-level city status in August 2019.
