Tongling
prefecture-level city in Anhui, China
Tongling (simplified Chinese: 铜陵; traditional Chinese: 銅陵; pinyin: Tónglíng; Wade–Giles: T'ung-ling; lit. 'Copper Hillock') is a prefecture-level city in southern Anhui province of China. A river port along the Yangtze River, Tongling borders Wuhu to the east, Chizhou to the southwest and Anqing to the west.
As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,311,726 inhabitants whom 842,675 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made of 3 urban districts.
At the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, the permanent population will be 1.302 million. The asteroid 12418 Tongling was named after the city.
History
Tongling has been famous as a beautiful mountain city since its origins in the Han dynasty over 1500 years ago. Owing to its copper and tin deposits, it was an important center in the past for bronze production. The scale of industrial activity gradually increased through the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, the Japanese occupation (1938–45), and especially under the Communist government since 1949. Tongling has a long history and produced many talented people.
“Tongling” enters the record as prefecture-level city in Anhui, China. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tongling, prefecture-level and city can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Tongling” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Tongling, prefecture-level and city provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q360326. Authority coordinates are 30.946, 117.811. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2020, 2024, 2025 and 1500.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Tongling”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Tongling primary sources, Tongling archive and Tongling research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tongling”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Tongling” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.