Yiwu history  

This is the brief Yiwu history. Yiwu City located in the central part of Zhejiang Province, covers a land area of 1,105 sq km in total, with about 0.7 million local permanent residents and over 1 million migrant workers and merchants. Yiwu boasts a long history, which was formed as Wushang County in the 25th year of the reign of Emperor Yingzhen in the Qing Dynasty (222 BC), renamed as Yiwu County in 624 AD and established as Yiwu City in 1988. The City is renowned as a land of culture and a number of celebrities. Yiwu City consists of seven Sub-districts: Choucheng, Choujiang, Beiyuan, Jiangdong, Houzhai, Niansanli and Chengxi, and six Towns: Dachen, Suxi, Shangxi, Yiting, Fotang and Chi’an.

Three decades ago, Yiwu was a populous area of 1,105 sq km with insufficient farmland and weak basic industries. As PRC is a communist country, no free trade was allowed. But the mountainous Yiwu still remained unchanged, poor land still remained unchanged, people still remained starved, even it was already communist country. People had to seek out other ways to make ends meet.

The day of August 25, 1982 is a historic day in Yiwu market. On the basis of thorough investigation, Yiwu county government decided to issue a “circular”: “allowing farmers to come to  city to do business, “”allow the city market to be opened” and so on. It is because of the leading concept of government serving people that lay the foundation of Yiwu Commodity City.

Recalling the almost twenty years’ development history of yiwu market, first of all is the leading concept. Yiwu is the first city to let farmers go into city to do business, letting farmers become  city residents, letting villagers become bosses, letting natural become legal entity, letting rural market become commercial city. Besides, in the practices of  recent years, Yiwu was the first to make foreign merchant become domestic merchant and make regional market become international market.That is the brief history of Yiwu City.