Current Time in Hulan Ergi, China

Hulan Ergi, known in Chinese as Fularji, is an industrial district of the city of Qiqihar in Heilongjiang province, in the far north-east of China. It stands on the western bank of the Nen River on the flat black-soil plain of Songnen, an immense expanse of farmland, marshes and wide skies. The name comes from the Daur language of the region and is usually explained as a reference to the red banks of the river. Winters here are among the harshest in China, with temperatures falling far below minus twenty degrees for weeks at a time, while summers are short, warm and green.

Around a quarter of a million people live in the district. Its significance is industrial: this is one of the founding sites of heavy engineering in the People's Republic, home to a giant works producing special alloy steel and to China First Heavy Industries, a national enterprise that manufactures enormous forgings, pressure vessels, mining and metallurgical equipment and components for nuclear power stations. Thermal power plants, chemical works and machinery factories complete the picture.

Before the twentieth century this was a Daur and Mongol fishing and farming settlement beside the river, later reached by the railway built across Manchuria. Its transformation came in the 1950s, when the first five-year plan selected the site for several of the key projects intended to build China's industrial base, constructed with Soviet technical assistance. Workers and engineers arrived from across the country, and a planned town of wide avenues, apartment blocks, schools and cultural halls rose beside the factories. Like much of the north-east, the district went through difficult years of restructuring as state industry was reformed, and it continues to modernise its plants today.

Hulan Ergi is not a tourist destination, but it offers a clear view of China's industrial heritage, with Soviet-influenced architecture, workers' clubs and monuments of the socialist era. The banks of the Nen River provide beaches, parks and fishing spots that fill with families in summer, and the frozen river becomes a playground of skating and ice sculpture in winter. The great attraction of the surrounding area is Zhalong, a vast wetland nature reserve near Qiqihar that shelters red-crowned cranes and other rare birds, one of the most important sanctuaries in Asia and a place of pilgrimage for photographers.

Life follows north-eastern Chinese customs, with hearty food of stewed pork and beans, dumplings, pickled cabbage, cold noodles and generous drinking, and a famously direct and humorous local manner. Ice festivals, winter swimming clubs and open-air dancing in the squares mark the seasons.

Buses and a highway link the district to central Qiqihar, and the railway station connects to Harbin and beyond, with high-speed services now serving the region. Technical colleges and training institutes attached to the industrial enterprises educate engineers and skilled workers.

Hulan Ergi matters as a cornerstone of China's heavy industry, a planned factory town on the northern plains with a distinctive history and a striking natural setting.