38°42′N 118°6′E / 38.700°N 118.100°E
The Bohai Economic Rim (BER) or Bohai Bay Economic Rim (BBER) is the economic region surrounding Tianjin (Tientsin). It also includes areas in Hebei, Liaoning and Shandong surrounding the Bohai Sea. This region has undergone major economic and infrastructural changes and is an emerging economic powerhouse of North China, rivaling both the Pearl River Delta in southern China and the Yangtze River Delta in eastern China.
Tangshan (Chinese: 唐山; pinyin: Tángshān) is a coastal, industrial prefecture-level city in the northeast of Hebei province. It is located in the eastern part of Hebei Province and the northeastern part of the North China Plain. It is located in the central area of the Bohai Rim and serves as the main traffic corridor to the Northeast. The city faces the Bohai Sea in the south, the Yan Mountains in the north, Qinhuangdao across the Luan River to the east, and Tianjin to the west.
Much of the city's development is thanks to the industrialization, beginning in 1870, when Kailuan Group established coal mines in the region. It is the birthplace of China's first standard-gauge railway, the first railway plant, the first steam locomotive, and the first cement factory. It was hailed as China's "cradle of industrialization". Even today, Tangshan is a hub of steel, energy, chemical, and ceramics production. Ping opera, which originated from the city's Luanzhou county, is one of the five most popular Chinese operas.
The Bohai Sea (Chinese: 渤海; pinyin: Bó Hǎi; lit. 'Bo Sea') is a gulf/inland sea approximately 77,000 km (30,000 sq mi) in area on the east coast of Mainland China. It is the northwestern and innermost extension of the Yellow Sea, to which it connects via the Bohai Strait. It has a mean depth of approximately 18 meters (59 ft), with a maximum depth of about 80 meters (260 ft) located in the northern part of the Bohai Strait.
The Bohai Sea is enclosed by three provinces and one direct-administered municipality from three different regions of China—Liaoning Province (of Northeast China), Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality (of North China), and Shandong Province (of East China). It is the center of the Bohai Economic Rim, and its proximity to the Chinese capital of Beijing and the municipality of Tianjin makes it one of the busiest seaways in the world. The entrance to the Bohai Sea is considered a part of the territorial sea of the People's Republic of China due to the presence of the Miaodao islands. China declared the Bohai sea to be part of its inland waters in 1958.
Tianjin is a major international port city in China. It is a direct-administered municipality on the shore of the Bohai Sea making it separate from the surrounding Hebei province. It is one of the nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the 2020 Chinese census. Its metropolitan area, which is made up of 12 central districts (other than Baodi, Jizhou, Jinghai and Ninghe), was home to 11,165,706 inhabitants in 2015 and is also the world's 29th-largest agglomeration (between Chengdu and Rio de Janeiro) and 11th-most populous city proper.
Tianjin is governed as one of the four municipalities (alongside Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing) under the direct administration of the State Council of China. However, it is the only municipality with a population of less than 20 million. The city borders Hebei Province and Beijing Municipality, bounded to the east by the Bohai Gulf portion of the Yellow Sea. Part of the Bohai Economic Rim, it is the largest coastal city in Northern China and part of the Jing-Jin-Ji megapolis.
The Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway (or Jinghu high-speed railway) is a high-speed railway that connects two major economic zones in the People's Republic of China: the Bohai Economic Rim and the Yangtze River Delta.Construction began on April 18, 2008, with the line opened to the public for commercial service on June 30, 2011.The 1,318-kilometer (819 mi) long high-speed line is the world's longest high-speed line ever constructed in a single phase.
The line is one of the busiest high speed railways in the world, transporting over 210 million passengers in 2019, more than the annual ridership of the entire TGV or Intercity Express network.It is also China's most profitable high speed rail line, reporting a ¥11.9 billion Yuan ($1.86 billion USD) net profit in 2019.
Statistically, China does not have a simple concept of metropolitan areas. In the country's long-term development plan, China's regional economic layout and planning include large areas such as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Bohai Economic Rim; smaller areas include the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle, the Wuhan Metropolitan Area, and the Greater Changsha Metropolitan Region. Even smaller areas include the Shanghai Pudong New Area,Tianjin Binhai New Area, Sichuan Tianfu New Area, Chongqing Liangjiang New Area, Hunan Xiangjiang New Area, Shaanxi Xixian New Area, Guangzhou Nansha New Area, and Hebei Xiong'an New Area. This is an industrial layout and national long-term development plan formed after decades of industrialization. However, only administrative divisions above the county level regularly publish social and economic development indicators.
As one of the types of administrative divisions in China, cities includes three categories: municipalities, prefecture-level cities, and county-level cities. In addition, China's two special administrative regions are highly commercialized and densely populated areas in the world. Both the international and Chinese governments classify them as cities. In terms of area, prefecture-level cities and municipalities are comparable, and the population and economic sizes are not much different, belonging to the same order of magnitude. There are no county-level cities in municipalities, which is the biggest difference between municipalities and prefecture-level cities in administrative divisions. Mostly, a China's county-level city has all been reformed and developed from a county as a whole, but the development focus, policies authorized by the central and provincial governments, and authorized development plan are different from that of a county. Based on this, this entry only includes China's prefecture-level cities, municipalities and special administrative regions. If you want to fully understand the economic level of prefecture-level administrative regions, you must refer to list of prefecture-level divisions of China by GDP.