KAIANIA: see SEI5TAN.
one of the most historic cities of China and the capital of Honan province. It is situated on the western bor ders of the Plain of North China a little beyond the point where the Hwang-ho emerges on to it from the Tung-kwan Gorge. It thus guards the eastern end of the long corridor by which China was most easily approached from the West. Kai-feng was one of the most important of the early settlement sites and a great node of routes leading eastwards towards the Shantung Highlands and southwards towards the Yangtze along the drier western margin of the Plain. It lay within the zone of early Imperial capitals and was itself a capital city in the period of the Five Dynasties (A.D. 907-960) and the early part of the succeeding Sung Dynasty. Under the Ming and Manchu Dynasties it was made the centre of important road systems. Its significance as a "gate" city for influences from the west is shown by the large Muslim element in its population and the continuance almost down to the present time of a distinct Jewish colony, whose advent is recorded on some famous inscribed stones still preserved. Kai-feng is the
centre of a densely-populated rural area, producing good crops of wheat, millet, sorghum and also cotton which is locally manu factured. The rearing of horses, mules, swine and sheep is also very important. But both the city and the country of which it is the market are often menaced by the floods of the Hwang-ho which runs a few miles to the north. Kai-feng is linked by the transverse Lung-Hai railway with both the great north-south trunk lines (Peking-Hankow and Tientsin-Pukow) but transport facilities are still very inadequate. The population of the city is about 200,000.