Linfen

Linfen is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Shanxi province, China, on the lower reaches of the Fen River and bordering Shaanxi province to the west. Its administrative area covers 20,275 square kilometres, about 13 percent of the province, and at the 2020 census it held 3,976,481 people, of whom 959,198 lived in the built-up area of Yaodu urban district. The city sits in a basin between the Taiyue range to the east and the Luliang Mountains to the west, with fertile river plain land on both banks of the Fen. It takes its name from the river and was long known as Pingyang, a name tied to legends of the ruler Yao and to the Xiongnu rulers who made it a capital in the fourth century. Before 1978 it was famed for spring water and fruit, but it has since become a coal mining and industrial centre, and in 2006 an American environmental group listed it among the ten most polluted cities in the world, although its air quality had improved by 2023.