Anyang

City in Henan province, east China; population (1994) 1,038,000. It lies on the Beijing–Guangzhou railway. Iron- and steel-smelting are the principal industries, using local coal and iron ore from the nearby Hanxing mining area, and the Hebi coalmining complex. Engineering and the manufacture of textiles are also important. The city was a capital of the Shang dynasty (16th–11th centuries BC). Rich archaeological remains have been uncovered since the 1920s.

The I Ching was compiled in Anyang during the Zhou dynasty (1066–221 BC).

History Anyang was known as Yin during the Shang dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms period it was the capital of the Wei Kingdom (220–65). Ruins of the ancient Shang city lie northwest of Anyang on the banks of the Huan or Anyang River, a tributary of the Huang He River. In 1899 peasants unearthed a great number of oracle-bone inscriptions, the earliest existing Chinese writing, testifying to the existence of the Shang capital. Systematic excavations carried out in 1928 by the Academia Sinica uncovered the remains of a 16th-century royal palace, several royal tombs, and further oracle bones.