Known as the "land of rice and fish," Jiangsu is home to some of China's most arable and fertile land. This natural competitive advantage—along with over 1,000 km of coastline, the Yangzi River estuary and some of China's largest lakes—has long made Jiangsu one of the country's most prosperous provinces, its heritage of power and influence manifest in its architecture, whether classical or contemporary, civic, religious or industrial.
Classic Grand Canal water towns like Suzhou, Tongli and Zhouzhuang are popular with both Chinese and international tourists eager to experience quintessential Chinese landsapes defined by ancient waterways and artful gardens, while Nanjing, the provincial seat of government and one of China's four ancient capitals, is home to some of the country's most important and famous attractions, including Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum (Zhongshan Ling), the Confucius Temple, Ming Tombs and some of China's finest remaining city walls—as well as a host of recently built skyscrapers. Further north, the pleasant canal town of Yangzhou, famous for its lacquer and jade, is a perfect base for exploring the side of Jiangsu less traveled by the masses.
Travel throughout Jiangsu is convenient and reasonable, whether by train, bus or privately rented vehicle; its flat landscape makes for pleasant cycling; and the network of waterways comprising the old Grand Canal system is, in places, traversable by boat. And given its proximity to Shanghai and its maglev-linked hypermodern airport, Jiangsu is one of the most quickly accessible parts of China for international travelers.
The real trick to getting the most out of the region is timing. Summers can be beastly and winters dank, making the temperate and relatively clear days of spring and fall the ideal time to explore one of China's most fascinating regions.
Jiangsu's prosperity predates the initiation of Deng Xiaoping's 1978 opening and reform policies by far, going back at least as far as the 9th century AD when the initiation of the Grand Canal resulted in a transfer of economic and political power from north to south, especially during the Tang (618-907 AD) and Song (960–1279) dynasties. The province's favorable position relative to the Yangzi (Yangtze) River and Yellow Sea created an infrastructure for trade that endured to this day, with the proximity of Shanghai—today the world's largest port—spurring growth throughout Jiangsu into the contemporary era.
While Jiangsu only assumed its official provincial form in the 17th century, the region's recorded history dates back to the time of the Zhou Dynasty (1122-256 BC) and the Spring and Autumn Period (5th century BC) when the state of Wu claimed the Yangzi Delta as its stronghold.
When the Han (206 BC-220 AD) took control of the Middle Kingdom, Jiangsu fell into relative obscurity as the political center of China shifted to the Northern Plains, but during the Jin era (256-420 AD), nomad groups began to force the Han southward, leading them to establish a new capital in Jiankang (present-day Nanjing).
During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), a wealthy mercantile class emerged, creating a market-based economy, with southern Jiangsu at its heart. Once the region rose to prominence, it would never again fall by the wayside. Even when the second Ming emperor returned the capital to Beijing, Jiangsu remained China's economic engine, with a small port town called Shanghai quickly rising to dominate the region during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) as Western powers and the Japanese made inroads into China's markets and territory.
As the Qing declined, Jiangsu suffered through some of the worst violence of the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) and colonialist incursions. With the fall of the Qing in 1912, Jiangsu was subject to the depradations of local warlords and criminal gangs until 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek consolidated his power and the Kuomintang established the Republic of China, with Nanjing as its capital. It was also in 1927 that Shanghai was granted province-level status, becoming a neighbor of Jiangsu rather than a part of it.
During the 1930s, the expansionist Japanese empire pressed deeper into China. On December 13, 1937, Nanjing fell to Japanese troops, resulting in one of the most horrific incidents in modern history, the Nanjing Massacre. It wasn't until the end of World War II in 1945 that Nanjing and Jiangsu were free of the Japanese, and the region, along with all of China, was to experience four brutal years of civil war before Mao's communists drove the last of the Kuomintang from the mainland.
With the ascension of the communists, China's capital returned to Beijing, leaving Nanjing as capital of Jiangsu. The province continued to carry out its traditional role as an economic and industrial center along with adjacent Shanghai, but it wasn't until the various (and often disastrous) economic and social experiments of the Mao era gave way to Deng's reform and opening at the end of the 1970s that Jiangsu got its mojo back. Today, the crowded and industrious south continues to see breakneck development and construction, while the north retains some of its rural character and, along with it, lagging economic development.