Harbin is a sub-provincial city and the provincial capital of Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, as well as the second largest city by urban population and largest city by metropolitan population (urban and rural together) in Northeast China. Harbin has direct jurisdiction over nine metropolitan districts, two county-level cities and seven counties, and is the eighth most populous Chinese city according to the 2010 census, the built-up area (which consists of all districts except Shuangcheng and Acheng) had 5,282,093 inhabitants, while the total metropolitan population was up to 10,635,971.
Harbin serves as a key political, economic, scientific, cultural and communications hub in Northeast China, as well as an important industrial base of the nation.
Harbin, whose name was originally a Manchu word meaning "a place for drying fishing nets", grew from a small rural settlement on the Songhua River to become one of the largest cities in Northeast China. Founded in 1898 with the coming of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the city first prospered as a region inhabited by an overwhelming majority of immigrants from the Russian Empire.
Having the most bitterly cold winters among major Chinese cities, Harbin is heralded as the Ice City for its well-known winter tourism and recreations. Harbin is notable for its beautiful ice sculpture festival in the winter. Besides being well known for its historical Russian legacy, the city serves as an important gateway in Sino-Russian trade today. In the 1920s, the city was considered China's fashion capital since new designs from Paris and Moscow reached here first before arriving in Shanghai.
The city was voted "China Top Tourist City" by the China National Tourism Administration in 2004
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