Zhijiang is a county-level city of Yichang City, in the west of Hubei province, People's Republic of China. Until the 1990s Zhijiang was a county. It is located on the left (northern) shore of the Yangtze River, downstream from Yichang center city.

Administrative divisions

One subdistrict: Eight towns:

Climate

Zhijiang has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa) with hot, rainy summers and cool winters. Rainfall occurs throughout the year but is significantly heavier between April and August.

Education

Transport

Economy

Zhijiang City has a significant cluster of Taobao villages, rural Chinese villages where the local economy has developed to focus extensively on e-commerce via the Taobao retail shopping platform. As of September 2019, there are more than 1,000 e-commerce enterprises in Zhijiang City, more than 8,000 e-commerce online stores, and more than 20,000 people working in e-commerce.

Lü Banglie

In October 2005, Zhijiang was in the news because one of the delegates to its (county-level) People's Congress, Lu Banglie, a village-rights activist, was savagely beaten on October 8, 2005 in the village of Taishi , in Yuwotou town, Panyu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong, by unknown persons. The beating was witnessed by Benjamin Joffe-Walt, correspondent for The Guardian newspaper of the UK, who was himself threatened and believed Lü had been killed. Since 2004, Lü has been the popularly elected head of Baoyuesi village (30.34191°N, 111.68366°W), in the town of Bailizhou, situated on a peninsula in the Yangtze River and the only town in Zhijiang not on the river's left bank; there is no road connection between Bailizhou and the city's other towns. He is the first elected village head in the history of the People's Republic of China. The beating may have been intended to prevent a similar popular election from taking place in Taishi.