Guangde County | |||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 廣德縣 | ||||||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 广德县 | ||||||||||
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Transcriptions | |
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Standard Mandarin | |
Hanyu Pinyin | Guǎngdé Xiàn |
Wu | |
Romanization | kuaon teh yoe |
Guangde County is a county in Anhui Province, People's Republic of China under the jurisdiction of Xuancheng City. The county has a population of 510,000 and an area of 2,165 m (7,103 ft). The seat of government is at Taozhou Town.
Guangde County has jurisdiction over six towns and ten townships.
Guangde County provides the terrain for the 5.67-square-kilometer automobile proving ground (31°02′39″N 119°25′33″E / 31.044266°N 119.425751°E) with 60 km test roads, opened on September 22, 2012 and managed by Shanghai GM and the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center (PATAC), both joint-ventures of SAIC Motor with GM China.
On July 19, 1964 China launched and recovered its first successful experimental biological rocket carrying eight white mice from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Base 603 launch site in Shijie Town (誓节镇) within the county.
Prior to the late 19th century, most residents spoke a Jianghuai Mandarin dialect. Thereafter many people in the southern and eastern parts of the county began to speak Old Guangde dialect, a Taihu Wu Chinese dialect closely related to that of Suzhou dialect and Shanghainese. Most residents also speak the Southwestern Mandarin Guangde dialect.