Mukden

Mukden, China: see Shenyang.

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Shenyang

 or Shen-yang formerly Mukden

City (pop., 2003 est.: 3,995,500), capital of Liaoning province, northeastern China. An ancient city, it was the Manchu capital (1625–44) before the establishment of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty. After 1895 it was fought over by Russia and Japan in the struggle for Manchuria. It was occupied by the Japanese (1931–45). Taken by the communist forces in 1948, it was a base for their conquest of the whole of China. It is one of China's leading industrial cities; its manufactures include machinery, wires and cables, textiles, and chemicals. It is also a cultural and educational centre.

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Mukden 

(also Shenyang), a city in Northeast China, on the Hun Ho (a left tributary of the Liao Ho). Capital of Liaoning Province. Population, 4.2 million (1975). Mukden is the largest railroad hub in Northeast China; two international lines run through the city: Peking-Moscow (via Manchuria station) and Peking-Pyongyang.

Mukden is one of China’s most important industrial centers, with a diversified industry. Heavy machine building, including the production of construction and railroad equipment and equipment for the mining, metallurgical, chemical, textile, and food-processing industries, has undergone the most extensive development. The electrical engineering industry produces electric motors, transformers, turbines, diesel engines, electric cable, and electron tubes. In the area of transportation machine building, the city manufactures locomotives, railroad cars, streetcars, and motor vehicles. Other machine-building industries include tractor building, agricultural machine building, and the manufacture of machine tools and electronic equipment.

Metallurgy has undergone extensive development: Mukden has the largest nonferrous metal plant in China and a steel plant. The chemical industry, which produces soda, acids, mineral fertilizers, paints, varnishes, and industrial rubber goods, is also highly developed. As of 1978, a petrochemical plant to be sup plied with petroleum from the Tach’ing field was under construction near Mukden, to which a petroleum pipeline has been laid from Tach’ing. The city also has some light industry and paper, printing, wood-products, and food-processing industries. Mukden houses a university.

IU. I. GAVRILOVA

Mukden was founded in the second century B.C.as Houch’eng. From the eighth to 13th centuries it was called Shenchou, and under the Yüan Dynasty (13th–14th centuries) it was renamed Shenyang. The Manchus captured the city in 1621, and it bore the Manchu name Mukden from 1625 to 1912; during this period it was known in Chinese as Shengching or Shenyang. The city was the capital of the Manchu state from 1625 to 1644, and under the Ch’ing Dynasty (1644–1911) it was considered the second capital of China. In 1658 it became the capital of Fengt’ien Province and was given the name Fengt’ien.

Mukden was the capital of three northeastern provinces (Manchuria) from 1908 to 1931 and the political and military center of the Fengt’ien clique from 1916 to 1928. Its capture on Sept. 18, 1931, by the Japanese marked the beginning of the Japanese occupation of Northeast China (seeMUKDEN INCIDENT OF 1931 ). The city was liberated by the Soviet Army on Aug. 20,1945. On Nov. 2, 1948, it was liberated from the Kuomintang by the People’s Liberation Army of China.

Mukden has a rectilinear street plan. The inner, or Chinese, city (Neich’eng) is a center of commerce and handicrafts with narrow streets that are lined by pisé houses; the remains of a fortress wall have been preserved. West of the inner city is the administrative center, with five- to seven-story European-style buildings and houses surrounded by gardens and parks. In the northern part of the city is the T’iehhsichu, an industrial district in which factory buildings alternate with residential blocks. Palaces and temples of the ninth to 14th centuries are located in the approaches to the city. The Tungpei Museum is located in Mukden.