SHING=KINGI, or more properly, SHENG KING (Map: China, F 3). The wealthiest and the most important, though the smallest, of the three provinces which compose Manchuria (q.r.). Area, about 60,000 square miles. It is roughly triangular in shape, the apex pointing southward and ending in the peninsula of Lao-Vieh Shan and Port Arthur (q.v.). The northeastern part of the province is occupied by the Shan-a-liu mountain system, whose extensions form the Ts'ien Shan ranges, a long spur of which ex tends southwest through the peninsula. West of these mountains the country is level; south of them are alluvial tracts of greater or less extent interspersed with hilly ranges of moderate height. The western portion is drained by the Liao, and the eastern by the Ta-yang, which enters the Yellow Sea at Ta-ku-shan (latitude 39° 55' N., longitude 123° 5' E.), and partly by the Yalu-kiang.
The soil is fertile, producing abundant crops of wheat, barley, millet, maize, pulse, potatoes, cotton, hemp, indigo, tobacco, opium, sesamum and other oil-producing plants, etc. Cattle-rais ing is an extensive industry, and much wild silk is produced. Gold is found, coal and iron occur in many places and are worked, and there are large areas of valuable peat. Two rail
ways—the Chinese from Peking via Shan-hai kwan and the Russian from Port Arthur north ward to Harbin—traverse the province, but com munication is chiefly by roads. The chief ports are Ying-tse (commonly spoken of in connection with Niu-chwang), Port Arthur (q.v.), Ta-lien wan (q.v.). Pi-tse-we, and Ta-ku-shan. all domi nated by Russia, according to the treaty agree ment with China, dated March 27, 1898.
The population is estimated at 12,000,000, al most exclusively Chinese.
For centuries Shing-king was held by the Chinese, who made Shin-yang (Mukden) the capital. In 1894-95 the southern part from the Ya-lu to the Liao was captured by the Japanese, but was later relinquished under pressure from Russia, Germany. and France. Since 1898. when Russia leased the southern portion of the penin sula and secured a neutral zone reaching to the middle of the Ta-Tang River and including the village of Ta-ku-shan. Russian influence has pre vailed to the practical exclusion of all other nations. See Hosie. Manchuria, Its People, Re sources, and Recent History (London, 1901).