Cenxi

Cenxi 岑溪
—  County-level city  —
岑溪市
Coordinates: 22°55′N 111°00′E
Country	People's Republic of China
Region	Guangxi
Prefecture-level city	Wuzhou
Township-level divisions	14 towns
Municipal seat	Cencheng (岑城镇)
Area
• Total	2,783 km2 (1,075 sq mi)
Elevation	107 m (351 ft)
Population (2006)
• Total	840,000
• Density	Bad rounding here300/km2 (Bad rounding here780/sq mi)
Time zone	China Standard (UTC+8)
Postal code	543200
Area code(s)	0774

Cenxi (Chinese: 岑溪; Mandarin Pinyin: Cénxī; Jyutping: sam⁴kai¹) is a county-level city under the administration of Wuzhou City, in the east of Guangxi, People's Republic of China.

History

The first state that governed the current area of Cenxi was Nanyue Kingdom, which was succeeded by Han Dynasty, who then established Mengling County on current site of Cenxi.

During Southern Dynasties on A.D. 524, Yongye Commandery was established on current site, whereas during Sui Dynasty on A.D. 583, its administrative level was changed to County.

Later in Tang Dynasty on A.D. 622, it was restructured to Nanyi Zhou (eqvt. of Swiss cantons and American states), which was subdivided into 3 more counties. On A.D. 757, the central county was renamed to Cenxi County, which became the precursor of current name.

During Northern Song Dynasty on A.D. 973, the aforementioned 3 counties were reintegrated into Cenxi County, and then this name was kept going on through various dynasties and states.

Geography

Cenxi borders with Guangdong and its downtown is 32 kilometres west of the boundary. It situates on Lingnan hügelland, featured with mountains, hills and plains, and its climate is characterised as humid subtropical. The municipality comprises a small downtown core, several rural town centres, and hundreds of rural villages. Agricultural fields and natural forests account for most of the landmasses. The region is an industrial base for the mining and production of granite, as a result of the plenty and diversity of granite embodied in the earth.

Administrative divisions

Cenxi administers 14 towns:

Towns:

• Cencheng (岑城镇), Malu (马路镇), Nandu (南渡镇), Shuiwen (水汶镇), Dalong (大隆镇), Limu (黎木镇), Daye (大业镇), Jinzhu (筋竹镇), Chengjian (城谏镇), Guiyi (归义镇), Nuodong (糯垌镇), Anping (安平镇), Sanbao (三堡镇), Botang (波塘镇)

Demographics

The total population at the point of 2006 was approximately 0.78 million, of which ethnic Han people account for 99.6% of the total population. By the records of household registration, 15.8% of the population are non-agricultural, and 84.2% are agricultural.

Language

The great majority of population speak a vernacular known as Cenxi dialect (岑溪話), a Cantonese (粵語) variety that is moderately related to standard Cantonese (廣州話) (i.e. the Cantonese dialect spoken in Guangzhou) in terms of vocabulary, grammar and phonetics, and remains largely mutually intelligible with other Cantonese varieties. Compared to standard Cantonese, Cenxi dialect appears to have obvious nasal continuant. Hakka and ethnic minorities' languages possibly exist.

Unlike the plights of Guangzhou and Nanning, Cenxi dialect as a Cantonese variety, continues to be the mother tongue of the majority of Cenxi inhabitants and is still widely spoken on a daily basis. Though Mandarin is set to be the medium of instructions at schools as part of the broader Mandarin Promotion campaign initiated by China's Central Government, thanks to the low immigration rate and relatively isolated geography, Cenxi dialect survives the linguicide and evolves slowly.

Notable people

LIANG Fangwu (a.k.a. LEUNG Fong-Ng / LIANG Tiangui / LIANG Tianzhu). Kungfu master in Faat Ga Family of martial arts.

CHEN Jihuan (a.k.a. CHEN Tsai-Wun / CHAN Tsai-Woon). Military general in Second Sino-Japanese War, sacrificed in Battle of Guilin–Liuzhou.