one of the smallest but probably the most im portant and the most densely-peopled of the provinces of China, at the outlet of the Yang-tze Kiang. In its natural state it was a water-logged deltaic plain, bounded on the north by the Shan tung highlands and on the south by the scarps of south-east China. Except for outcrops of Carboniferous rocks around Nanking, the soils are almost wholly formed of recent deposits, loess and alkaline sands in the north and fertile silts and clays in the south. Lakes and swamps still occupy a considerable pro portion of the surface especially in the region of the Hwai marshes where the drainage is very indefinite. This swamp belt in the centre of the province (long inhabited by aboriginal tribes, the Hwai barbarians) has localised population in two distinct regions to the north and south of it, linked, however, by a line of towns along the Grand Canal. In northern Kiangsu the agri cultural resources are limited, the main crops being wheat, millet and fruit ; it is purely agrarian in character and the population is of only moderate density.
But southern Kiang-su, i.e., south of the marsh belt, is the richest region in the whole country. It is the "Garden of China" and supports an enormous population mainly by the close inter action of agricultural, industrial and commercial activities. Rice, wheat, sesamum, peanuts and melons are grown in large quantities, while mulberry and cotton provide the basis of the great silk and cotton industries of the region. The cotton is mainly of Chinese native kinds; experiments seem to show that the early autumn climate of the delta is too humid for American varieties. It is the industrial region of China par excellence, embracing many long-established domestic handicrafts and countless new manu factures resulting from western contact. It is also the chief com mercial outlet of the country and the bulk of China's foreign trade passes through it. This is the historic Kiang-nan, the heart of Manzi, whose opulence and activity made such an impression on Marco Polo when he visited it in the second half of the 13th century. Its intrinsic importance and its geographical position as the gateway to central China have made the Delta the chief scene of European commercial activity in the country since the beginning of the Treaty Port era and the problems arising out of this contact are here most clearly displayed. (See SHANGHAI.)
The delta and its fringes are intersected by waterways, both natural and artificial, which afford the chief trade-routes. In addition to the Yang-tze and the Grand Canal which intersects it at Chin-kiang and runs from south to north, there is a network of canals which also serve to drain the land, especially in the districts immediately to the north of the river. The province also possesses about 400 miles of government railways compris ing the important Shanghai-Nanking system with services to Hangchow and Ning-po and a section of the transverse Lung nai Railway in the north which has been recently completed to the new port of Hai-chow.
The population of Kiang-su was reported at 34,129,683 in 1928, disclosing an average density of 813 per square mile. Of this total 66% live in the deltaic tract, parts of which are among the most densely peopled areas in the world, the density rising to over 5,000 persons per square mile in the richest rice-growing districts. While the great majority of the people are farmers, Kiang-su contains a bigger industrial population, artisans in the western sense, than any other province in China and also has a large mercantile class. This is becoming increasingly articulate in public affairs, so that here more than in any other part of China except perhaps Kwangtung is there the nucleus of a definite "public opinion" on national policy. The large cluster of big cities like Soochow and Nanking in the delta, many of them with over 100,00o inhabitants, tends to develop political activities of a new type, so that Kiang-su may be regarded as the pulse of the new industrial China. It is a progressive province, as evi denced by the modernisation of the silk and cotton industries, the development of conservancy boards and afforestation schemes and not least by an energetic educational policy. In the matter of language there is an important distinction between northern Kiang-su which belongs to the Mandarin area of North China and the delta where the old Wu dialects are still the vernacular. Nanking, however, at the apex of the delta is mainly Mandarin speaking and this, as the official language, is increasingly under stood in the chief commercial centres of the deltaic region.