The city of Nantong

Nantong scenery

The city of Nantong in neighboring Jiangsu Province has stepped up cooperation with Shanghai in the culture and tourism fields with agreements signed and new routes unveiled in Shanghai.

About 10,000 tourists from Shanghai, including expats, will travel to Nantong in organized trips to experience several new cultural and tourist routes this year to facilitate exchanges between the two cities, cultural and tourist authorities from Nantong and Shanghai announced on Tuesday.

Some of these routes are designed based on the life of Zhang Jian (1853-1926), a Chinese industrialist and educator in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Nantong native was a pioneer in China's cotton manufacturing industry and founded more than 20 businesses and over 370 schools, making great contributions to the development of China's modern national industry and education system.

A glimpse of Nantong

Nantong in full bloom

These routes will take people to cultural venues and tourist attractions such as the former residence of Zhang Jian; the Haohe River scenic area; the Tangzha Ancient Town where Zhang founded a cotton mill, a cradle of China's modern national industry; the Langshan Mountain National Forest Park; the China Abacus Museum, the largest of its kind in the world; and Yisheng Cultural Expo Park, where Zhang established Yisheng Brewery, which produced a liquor that won a gold medal at the Milan International Exposition in 1906.

The Nantong City Administration of Culture, Radio and Television and Tourism signed cooperation agreements with six travel agencies in Shanghai to organize tourists from Shanghai to Nantong.

Nantong scenery

"The opening of the Shanghai-Suzhou-Nantong high-speed railway last year has made the cultural and tourist cooperation between Shanghai and Nantong even closer," said Cheng Meihong, deputy director of the Shanghai Administration of Culture and Tourism.

The event was Nantong's first cross-province promotion this year, which aims to boost tourist consumption and Nantong's integration into the Yangtze River Delta region, said Zhu Jin, director of the Nantong Tourism Association.