How Wealthy Is Zhejiang's Top County Emerging from the Sea?

Those who love bayberries salivate at the mention of Cixi, yet few realize it is neither a brand nor a variety but a county-level city under Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.

Cixi’s CBD exudes the aura of the great river delta.

Cixi is not just a bayberry hub but also Zhejiang’s top-ranked county, surpassing even Yiwu. While Yiwu is famed for selling small goods globally, Cixi is the supplier behind them. In 2022, Cixi’s GDP reached a staggering 252.16 billion yuan.

As early as a century ago, Cixi natives embodied the shrewdness and refinement of Shanghai’s Haipai culture, becoming one of the roots of Shanghainese and projecting their influence nationwide.

Ningbo for Zhejiang, Cixi for China.

Ningbo is an indispensable part of Zhejiang—the most important homeland of Zhejiang merchants, defining the province’s exquisite and flavorful cuisine. Yet Cixi, under Ningbo’s jurisdiction, transcends Zhejiang’s stereotypes and extends its influence across China.

The Hangzhou Bay Bridge links Jiaxing and Cixi,

shortening the latter’s travel distance to Shanghai.

Compared to offspring of other affluent Jiangnan towns, Cixi people ventured far. Since the Qing Dynasty, their footprints spanned Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan, and even Hong Kong. Wherever they went, tight-knit Ningbo migrants formed powerful merchant groups.

The Ningbo Gang pioneered China’s first national industries: the first commercial bank, the first日用化工厂 (daily chemical plant), the first insurers, the first Chinese-run stock exchange, even the first light bulb factory—rising alongside great近代工业城市 (modern industrial cities).

The Ningbo Gang wasn’t just Ningbo locals; Cixi people were pivotal. Early Qing Beijing hosted the Zheci Guild, where tailoring bosses were "all natives of Cixi, Zhejiang." Even Tongrentang Pharmacy’s founder, Yue Wugang, hailed from Cixi. Siming Bank, a financial lifeline for the Ningbo Gang, was established by Cixi’s Yu Qiaqing. Its grand旧址 (former sites) still stand on Shanghai’s Bund and Wuhan’s Jianghan Road.

Siming Bank funded the 1911 Revolutionary Army and held high status in Republican-era finance.

Shanghai felt Cixi’s influence most. Just across Hangzhou Bay, wealthy Shanghai drew Cixi migrants as factory owners, workers, government advisors, and chamber leaders—countering foreign powers on the Bund and shaping modern Shanghainese identity.

They replaced "wu" with "ala" as Shanghai dialect’s "I," made粢饭团 (ci fan tuan) the city’s classic breakfast. Crucially, their wealth and patriotism gave Shanghai a national backbone, keeping it open yet resilient against foreign资本 (capital) and culture.

By becoming Shanghainese, Cixi people transformed Shanghai—which in turn broadened Cixi’s horizons.

The inaugural chair of the influential Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce was a Cixi native.

Unlike many Chinese industrial cities boosted by行政命令 (administrative decrees), Cixi’s industry grew organically from workshops. Today, secondary sectors still dominate over 60% of GDP, deeply rooted.

Jiangnan’s springs are glorious, but its winters are damp and harsh. Since the Song Dynasty, hand-warming汤婆子 (tangpozi) copper heaters were essentials—a craft Cixi still preserves. As ancestral skills met broader vision, copper heaters evolved into electric暖器 (heaters) and踢脚线取暖器 (baseboard radiators); home workshops upgraded to factories. Cixi is winter’s sun for non-central-heating zones.

Behind Zhejiang’s stellar stats lies Cixi-Yiwu collaboration.

Last winter, Europe’s gas crunch spurred a rush for Chinese heaters. As "China’s Heating Hub," Cixi exported countless electric blankets and "little suns" for foreign exchange. From汤婆子 to electric暖器, its industry warms ever-wider horizons.

Located at the crossroads of Shanghai, Hangzhou, Yiwu, and Ningbo's main urban areas, Cixi also enjoys the advantage of convenient transportation. Leveraging the capital and technology provided by Shanghai and Hangzhou, as well as the global market offered by Yiwu, Cixi's private enterprises have grown step by step from small workshops. Today, 98% of Cixi's industrial output value above designated size, 91% of tax revenue, 90% of employment, and 100% of high-tech enterprises originate from the private economy.

You may not pay attention to ordinary sockets, lighters, or range hoods, but they are the unseen foundations supporting your daily life—and they likely come from Cixi. Cixi's private economy does more than just small appliances; it can turn sockets into renowned brands, supply core components for industrial robots, and even provide sealing rings for nuclear reactor vessels.

In an era where young people generally leave counties for big cities to seek their futures, Cixi has attracted 1.83 million people thanks to its robust manufacturing industry, with its urban population exceeding 1 million, making it already a Type II large city.

Cixi's land is often divided into square blocks, a result of the interplay between rivers and embankments.

In fact, a century ago, most of this area was cotton fields and salt flats, with the rest submerged in the sea.

How did the people of Cixi "reclaim land from the sea"?

Wealthy counties in Jiangnan have often been prosperous for centuries, but Cixi is an exception. As a latecomer, without abundant capital or centuries-old dominant industries, the struggle of Cixi's people is a history of defying fate, growing from the sea.

Like other Jiangnan water towns, Cixi lacks neither water nor lakes.

On today's maps, there is a peculiarly shaped bulge on the southern coast of Hangzhou Bay—that is Cixi. It is a masterpiece of the locals' interaction with nature. Unlike the Taihu Plain, which has been extensively developed since the Spring and Autumn period, Cixi was developed very late. During the Jianyan Southern Migration, when Hangzhou was elevated to a temporary capital and became the de facto capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, most of today's Cixi was still under the sea.

Just as big cities can be divided into "third ring" or "fifth ring" roads from the center outward, the growth rings of Cixi are the "third embankment," "fifth embankment," and "eighth embankment." Rivers in the Northern Hemisphere typically erode the right bank, but under the influence of the Qiantang River's tidal bore flowing against the river's direction, the right bank where Cixi is located instead accumulated vast amounts of sediment.

This is how Cixi's Sanbei Plain "grew."

During the Tang Dynasty, the Qiantang River deposited a stretch of tidal flats here, and people attempted to convert it into farmland, but the tidal bore and sea encroachment could destroy it at any time. In the Song Dynasty, local laborers built the first embankment around the tidal flats. By the Ming Dynasty, as population surges led to intensified soil erosion upstream of the Qiantang River and the river changed course, new tidal flats continuously formed outside the embankments, and new embankments were built at their edges.

The newly formed land was first used as salt fields, then as cotton fields, and finally transformed into paddy fields by diverting streams. In the process of embankments advancing and the sea retreating, the people of Cixi forcefully created a fertile Sanbei Plain between "ào" and "qí" (local terms in Ningbo dialect).

Saline-alkali soil rice production bases explore growing rice in saline-alkali land.

"Ào" and "qí" are unique place names along Zhejiang's coast. The former refers to small plains surrounded by mountains on three sides and the sea on one side, while the latter refers to mountains extending into the sea. The scarcity of arable land is evident from these names. Forced to live off the sea, Cixi's fishermen grew accustomed to risk and separation, laying the psychological foundation for their later ventures in distant business worlds.

The people of Cixi are hardworking. As early as the 1980s, they sold harvested cotton to Hangzhou and Suzhou through "100,000 supply and marketing agents running the market," exchanging it for rural necessities and raw materials for village enterprises. Thus, Cixi was integrated into Jiangnan's economic system, gaining the foundation for takeoff and the history of villages growing factories and townspeople spreading across the land.

The cargo containers at Beilun Port offer a glimpse of how strong Cixi's manufacturing industry is.

How carefree is life in Cixi, with its small seas and rice cake pounding?

The silt from the Qiantang River not only formed Cixi's land but also enriched its people's lives. During festivals, Cixi's dining tables naturally feature the "floating" salted vegetable and yellow croaker soup. But the most traditional and everyday seafood here doesn't come from the sea—it originates from the tidal flats formed by silt deposits.

Unlike beachcombing on sandy shores, Cixi's "small sea" harvests take place on tidal flats.

The people of Cixi have a catchy rhyme about their small seafood dishes: "Jellyfish skin tossed with vegetable oil, drunken white crab with small fish and shrimp. Yellow clams spitting iron and eel threads, oysters and razor clams with pickled vegetable stems." The everyday seafood they eat might even be indecipherable to outsiders. Even the commonly seen mudskipper in documentaries is just a flavoring ingredient for soups with tofu and bamboo shoots to Cixi locals.

Inexperienced diners often swallow the whole shell of the salty and briny yellow mud snail, which has even become a representative flavor of Jiangnan. Cixi people wash the snails, then pickle them with salt and wine, enjoying a few with their rice porridge—elevating even leftover rice. Teaching the younger generation how to deftly suck out the tender, springy snail meat like cracking sunflower seeds has become a warm memory between grandparents and grandchildren.

The iconic Jiangnan flavor—yellow mud snail.

Photo / Jin Yun, Image / Tuchong Creative

To capture that fresh taste, Cixi people showcase their ingenuity. They craft specialized tools for tidal foraging, using lift nets for shrimp and fish and "horizontal nets" for clams. They even invented mud-horse boats to navigate the muddy tidal flats.

Today, the wetlands of Hangzhou Bay are gradually transforming into a national park, and aquaculture has made small seafood more accessible. For most, tidal foraging has become a fading memory.

From morning rice cake dumplings and Cixi pan-fried buns to Songjia Cao dried tofu paired with wine, and now the revived "mouse sugar balls" in tourist areas—Cixi’s snacks reflect the cultural fusion of Ningbo and Shanghai. The sweet-and-sour Yangmei berries of Cixi are as addictive as life here.

Fig. 1: Cixi Yangmei. Photo / Zhu Mengfei

Fig. 2: You Dunzi (fried dough fritters). Photo / Xiao Yu Tongxue

Naturally evolving Cixi hasn’t abandoned tradition. Rural homes still host small workshops crafting copper hand warmers and tiger-head shoes. The hardwood furniture collected by entrepreneurs may not be Ming antiques but could be the work of a Cixi master artisan. The "water and fire meteor" performance on Lantern Festival nights recalls the brilliance of traditional acrobatics. Even Yue kiln porcelain finds its inheritors here.

Cixi’s red copper stoves are still handmade.

Jiangnan has long been dotted with prosperous counties, but Cixi stands alone. Built from the sweat and ingenuity of its people, wrested from the sea, its low-key yet driven culture is etched into the city’s "genes." It helped shape Shanghai-style culture and birthed China’s earliest finance industry, yet now humbly thrives as a manufacturing hub. Where will the tide-tested people of Cixi steer the "Qiantang spectacle, unparalleled in the southeast" next?

From bay to farmland to manufacturing center, ever-young Cixi continues to grow.

Photo / Huang Jin Da Biaoge, Image / Tuchong Creative

Cover image | Visual China

This article is original content from [Di Dao Feng Wu].