Tàizhōu is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu province in eastern China. Situated on the north bank of the Yangtze River, it borders Nantong to the east, Yancheng to the north and Yangzhou to the west. The 2020 Chinese census counted its population at 4,512,762 of whom 1,728,408 live in the built-up (or metro) area made of three urban districts (Hailing, Jiangyan and Gaogang). Two county-level cities have more than 1 million inhabitants, Xinghua with 1,253,548 inhabitants and Taixing with 1,073,921 inhabitants, comprising two of the most important county-level cities in China. Hu Jintao, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, considers Taizhou his home town as did Mei Lanfang, one of the most famous Peking opera artists in modern Chinese history. Administration and population The prefecture-level city of Taizhou administers six county-level divisions, including two districts and four county-level cities. These are further divided into 105 township-level divisions, including 91 towns, eight townships and six subdistricts. At the end of 2019, the total household registration population was 5,005,500, and the birth population was 35,300 (birth rate 7.02 ‰), a decrease of 1.37 thousand points from the previous year. 43,400 people died in 2019 (mortality rate 8.64 ‰), an increase of 0.2 thousand points from the previous year. At the end of each year, the city's permanent population was 4,636,100, an increase of 400 over the previous year. At the end of 2019, the urbanization population of permanent residents reached 66.8%, an increase of 0.8 percentage points over the previous year. Geography and climate Taizhou lies at the confluence of the Yangtze River and the Jinghang Canal (Grand Canal of China), in the south-central Jiangsu Province, which is on the north bank of lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the south end of Jianghuai Plain. Its latitude ranges from about 32° 02′ — 33°11′ N and longitude 119° 38′ — 120° 32′ E, with a total area of . Neighbouring areas: Yangzhou to the west, Nantong to the east, and Yancheng to the north. As with the rest of central and southern Jiangsu, Taizhou has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), influenced by the East Asian Monsoon, with cold, damp, but comparatively dry, winters, and hot, humid summers with copious rain. The normal monthly mean temperature ranges from in January to in July, while the annual mean is . Nearly half of the mean annual rainfall of is distributed