Suzhou (Chinese: 苏州; pinyin: Sūzhōu; Suzhou dialect: [səu tsøʏ]), previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part of the Yangtze River Delta region. Administratively, Suzhou is a prefecture-level city with an urban population of over 4 million expanding to over 10 million in the administrative area.
Originally founded in 514 BCE, Suzhou has over 2,500 years of rich history, and relics of the past are abundant to this day. The city's canals, stone bridges, pagodas, and meticulously designed gardens have contributed to its status as one of the top tourist attractions in China. Since the Song Dynasty (960-1279), it has also been an important centre for China's silk industry. The classical gardens in Suzhou were added to the list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1997 and 2000. Suzhou is often dubbed the "Venice of the East" or "Venice of China".
Jiangsu ( listen (help·info); simplified Chinese: 江苏; traditional Chinese: 江蘇; pinyin: Jiāngsū; Wade–Giles: Chiang-su; Postal map spelling: Kiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning (now Nanjing), and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" (sū), the second character of its name. It is the province with the highest population density in China, though the provincial-level municipalities of Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin have a higher density.
Jiangsu borders Shandong in the north, Anhui to the west, and Zhejiang and Shanghai to the south. Jiangsu has a coastline of over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) along the Yellow Sea, and the Yangtze River passes through the southern part of the province. Since the initiation of economic reforms in 1990, Jiangsu has been a hot spot for economic development, and now has the highest GDP per capita of all Chinese provinces. The southern regions are richer than the north.