Harbin

Harbin (här`bĭn), Rus. Kharbin, city (1994 est. pop. 2,505,200), capital of Heilongjiang prov., China, on the Songhua River. It is the major trade and communications center of central Manchuria, the junction of the two most important railroads in Manchuria, and the main port on the Songhua. Part of the great Manchurian industrial complex of metallurgical, machinery, chemical, petroleum, and coal industries, Harbin also has railroad shops, food-processing establishments (soybeans are a major commodity), and plants making tractors, turbines, boilers, precision instruments, electrical and electronic equipment, cement, and fertilizer. Harbin was unimportant until Russia was granted a concession (1896) and built a modern section alongside the old Chinese town. (Russia surrendered its concession in 1924.) Flooded by White Russian refugees after 1917, Harbin had one of the largest European populations in East Asia. Most of the Europeans left the city following the rise to power of the Chinese Communists. Harbin's institutions of higher learning include Harbin Polytechnical Univ., a medical college, and several technical institutes.

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Harbin

 Chinese Ha'erbin or Ha-erh-pin

City (pop., 2003 est.: 2,735,095), capital and largest city of Heilongjiang province, northeastern China. Located on the Sungari (Songhua) River in the centre of Northeast China (Manchuria), it grew with the arrival of the Chinese Eastern Railway, built by the Russians in the late 19th century. A Russian military base during the Russo-Japanese War, it was a haven for Russian refugees after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and had the largest Russian population of any city outside the Soviet Union. Chinese communist forces took the city in 1946 and from it were able to bring all of northeastern China under their control. It then became the region's chief industrial base and a shipping centre for agricultural products.

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Harbin

a city in NE China, capital of Heilongjiang province on the Songhua River: founded by the Russians in 1897; centre of tsarist activities after the October Revolution in Russia (1917). Pop.: 2 989 000 (2005 est.)