Guangde is a county-level city in the southeast of Anhui Province, People's Republic of China, bordering the provinces of Jiangsu to the north and Zhejiang to the east. It is the easternmost county-level division of Anhui and is under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city Xuancheng within Anhui Province. The city has a population of 510,000 and an area of 2165 km2. The seat of government is at Taozhou Town. Guangde has jurisdiction over six towns and ten townships.

Administrative divisions

Guangde City is divided to 5 towns and 4 townships.

Industry

Guangde provides the terrain for the 5.67-square-kilometer automobile proving ground (31.04427°N, 119.42575°W) with 60 km of test roads, opened on September 22, 2012, and managed by Shanghai GM and the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center (PATAC), both joint ventures of SAIC Motor with GM China.

Climate

Transport

Chinese manned space program

On July 19, 1964, China launched and recovered its first successful experimental biological rocket carrying eight white mice from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Base 603 launch site in Shijie Town (誓节镇) within the city.

Culture

Prior to the late 19th century, most residents spoke a Jianghuai Mandarin dialect. Thereafter many people in the southern and eastern parts of the city began to speak Old Guangde dialect, a Taihu Wu Chinese dialect closely related to that of Suzhou dialect and Shanghainese. Most residents also speak the Southwestern Mandarin Guangde dialect.