Chaoyang History

Chaoyang has a long history. With the discovery of 5 to 6,000 year old Niuheliang Hongshan Cultural Ruins and the 4000 years of Chinese culture since then, Chaoyang has drawn attention as one birthplace of ancient Chinese culture. Historically, this area first appeared as “Liucheng County” in the Early Han period of the 3rd century B.C. From the 4th to 5th century during the Period of Sixteen Kingdoms, the states of Former Yan, Later Yan, and the Northern Yan were created here, so this area was called the “Yan Area”. Since the Tang Dynasty, Chaoyang flourished as a center of Northeast Asian culture, politics, and economy and has been called “The leader of the northeast which has prospered for hundreds of years”.

The name “Chaoyang” comes from a poem in one of the oldest collections of Chinese poetry. The poem found in the famous Shijing goes,“A wutong tree grew on a mountain. A fenghuang bird perched at the top and sang towards the morning sun” (Chaoyang’s name means “morning sun” in Chinese). In the eastern part of Chaoyang, there is a mountain that has been called Fenghuang Mountain since old times. In 1778, this mountain was connected with the poem from the Shijing and Chaoyang was given its current name.