Daqing, China

History

The region now known as Daqing Prefecture was a reasonably insignificant place until the Qing dynasty, known only as an unsettled hunting ground of Dörbet Oirat tribes due to its wetland and prairies. The region began to grow slightly after the Russian Empire constructed the Chinese Eastern Railway (KVZhD) through the area in 1898. The railway has a station at Sartu in today's Sartu District. It was not until 1959 that oil was discovered in the region as part of the large scale oil exploration put into motion across the Northeast China Plain.

The Daqing oilfield was discovered in the late 1950s, and drilling began in 1958. A town with the same name was founded in 1959 to house workers extracting oil and gas from the oilfield and to host industries which could take advantage of the energy and petrochemicals, shortly before the 10th anniversary of the founding of the PRC. The oilfield and the town had the same administrative body until 1983.

The successful construction of the Daqing oil field despite harsh weather conditions and supply limitations became a model held up by the Party as an example during subsequent industrialization campaigns. The project also delivered critical economic benefits because without the production of the Daqing oil field, crude oil would have been severely limited after the Soviet Union cut off supplies as a result of the Sino-Soviet split.

From the History section of Daqing on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.