Gaolao Mountain in Pan'an county. [Photo/WeChat account: pafabu]
Pan'an – located in Jinhua city in East China's Zhejiang province – was only established as a county in 1939. It covers an area of 1,196 square kilometers and has a population of 213,100. Pan'an has jurisdiction over 12 towns, two sub-districts, 216 administrative villages and 20 communities.
Pan'an is known as the heart of Zhejiang and it takes less than two hours to reach the provincial capital of Hangzhou from there – or the three other major Zhejiang cities metropolitan areas of Ningbo, Wenzhou and Jinhua-Yiwu.
The county has been boosted by the province's transportation upgrade, with the Zhuji-Yongjia expressway and Hangzhou-Shaoxing-Taizhou expressway now operating and the Jinhua-Taizhou railway and the Hangzhou-Wenzhou high-speed railway soon to open.
The continuous improvement of the transportation network has accelerated the overall development of Pan'an, with industries including modern agriculture, leisure tourism, construction and e-commerce having entered the fast track.
In 2020, the GDP of Pan'an county increased by 3.4 percent year-on-year despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
The county is a tourist resort with an outstanding environment and rich cultural sites – such as one of China's oldest tea markets, which was built in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
It has a forest coverage rate of 83.68 percent and is home to 138 intangible cultural heritage items. It is also known for its traditional Chinese medicine, edible mushrooms, tea and Torreya grandis – a type of conifer tree whose edible seeds are popular in China.
