Huludao, Liaoning Province, China

🇨🇳 Huludao (葫芦岛), formerly known as Jinxi (锦西), is a coastal prefecture-level city in south-western Liaoning province, People's Republic of China. Its name literally means "Gourd Island", referring to the fiddle-shaped contour of the peninsula, which resembles a bottle gourd, at the city's Longgang District.

Located on the north-western shore of the Liaodong Bay, Huludao is one of the three principal cities in the Liaoxi Corridor, and is Northeast China's gateway through the Shanhai Pass into North China. It borders Jinzhou to the north-east, Chaoyang to the north, and Qinhuangdao to the south-west, as well as sharing maritime boundaries with Yingkou and Dalian to the east and south-east across the bay.

More than 40 mineral resources have been discovered in the Huludao region, including gold, zinc, molybdenum, lime and manganese. West of the city centre, the town of Yangjiazhangzi is an important global centre for molybdenum mining.

Huludao boasts a long coastline of 237 km, and the surrounding waters are rich in fish, shrimp and shellfish, with plentiful reserves of natural gas and oil. With a climate suitable for the cultivation of fruit trees, Suizhong county is home to the Qiansuo orchard, Asia's largest, which grows a wide variety of fruits including apples, pears, nectarines and jujubes.

Huludao's economy is dominated by some of China's most important industrial enterprises, providing employment for a large proportion of the population. These include Asia's biggest zinc manufacturing operation, the Huludao Zinc Smelter, the Jinxi oil refinery and Jinhua chemical engineering, as well as Huludao's massive shipyard, the building site of China's nuclear submarines. The oilfield off the coast of Suizhong county produces 5 million tons of crude oil annually. Electricity generation is set to increase annual capacity to 3.6 million kilowatts.

In the city itself are special development areas designed to attract foreign investment to the region, including the Huludao Economic Development Zone and the Huludao Hi-tech Development zone, which is the location for a Siemens turbo-machinery plant.