Yangtze River Economic Belt

The Yangtze River Economic Belt is a policy-defined region of China arranged along the course of the Yangtze River. The Chinese government introduced the idea in 2014 and established it in 2016, with the stated aim of raising economic growth while limiting environmental damage. It covers eleven province-level divisions: Anhui, Chongqing, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shanghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Zhejiang, which together take in nine provinces and two directly administered municipalities. The belt holds about a fifth of the national territory and roughly two fifths of the population of China. Poyang Lake in Jiangxi, the largest freshwater lake in the country, lies inside it. The belt is a planning and administrative grouping rather than a natural landscape, so it is held here as a region defined by shared river and economic policy.