Huaian

Huai'an, formerly Huaiyin, is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province in Eastern China. As of 2020, the built-up area (metro) of its 3 central urban districts had 2,544,767 inhabitants and the prefecture-level city as a whole had 4,556,230 inhabitants, down from 4.8 million in 2010. Long an important regional center, Huai'an lies on and is named for the Huai River, the historical boundary between Northern and Southern Chinese culture. Once much closer to the East China Sea, it now lies in the middle of Jianghuai, the vast alluvial plain created by silt from the Huai and from the Yellow River, which flowed nearby for centuries prior to the massive floods in the mid-19th century which returned it to its old course north of Shandong. Huai'an is known as the birthplace of Han Xin, a famed general who helped found the Han dynasty and overwhelm Xiang Yu in Chu-han contention; Wu Cheng'en (1500–1582), the Ming author of Journey to the West; and Zhou Enlai (1898–1976), a prominent and early Chinese Communist leader who served as premier of the PRC from 1949 until his death in 1976.