City of Yiwu

The city of Yiwu has a population of around 2 million people in the central province of Zhejiang in China. It is 100 km away from south of the city of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang. The nearest city to Yiwu is Dongyang. The area, just like most cities of Zhejiang Province, is in a mountainous region. Technically, Yiwu is a part of the greater Municipal region of Jinhua, although it has a distinct urban centre. Under its jurisdiction, there are 15 towns and 8 villages, which cover 1102.8 square kilometres, of which 15 square kilometres, represent an urban area of around 650,000 people.

Yiwu is famous in China as a commodities centre. People from all over the world come to Yiwu City to buy commodities to resale to other parts of China or abroad. Yiwu, started as a Small-Commodity Market, and has improved to be one of the 100 top open markets in China for 6 consecutive years. It has been named as the banner of Chinese market economy. Yiwu has become a shopping paradise for tourists because it offers a large variety of good quality products at a cheaper price.

Yiwu has succeeded in attracting companies from Eastern China (from Beijing to Guangzhou, including Shanghai and the neighbouring regions, which are the most active from an economic point of view), and has become an important export centre of commodities.

Today, the different markets of Yiwu cover an area of around one million square meters; with more than 320,000 items classified in 1,502 different categories... thus Yiwu is the biggest supermarket in the world, as well as the most important exhibition centre for small commodities.

Yiwu’s market is actually a succession of several markets spread over the city. There are about twenty markets, and some are gathered in the same building.

Here are listed the main markets :

• Arts and crafts market (gifts made of glass/wood/metal, 3D crystal items, beads, Christmas products, and other decoration items)
• DIY and gardening market
• Umbrellas market
• artificial flowers market
• Stationery market (ball pens, fountain pens, advertising pens, pencils, erasers, pen boxes, files, and all kinds of stationeries)
• Sport and other leisure (fishing, music,...) markets 
• Clocks and watches market
• Eyeglasses and sunglasses market
• Kitchen and bathroom hardware market (plastic market)
• Toys market
• Candles market
• Cosmetic market
• Fashion jewellery market (rings, earrings, necklaces, hairpins, bracelets, ankle bracelets, toe rings, tattoos, artificial locks, wigs, all types of ornaments...)
• Mobile phones accessories market (mobile phones boxes, parts, cordons, ornaments,...)
• Small home appliances/ small electronic products market (FM radios, voice recorders, CD/VCD/DVD/MP3 players, earphones, microphones,...)
• Bags and leather products market (bags, belts, wallets, purses,...)
• Shoes market
• Tissue, cloths market
• Socks market

As a result, more than 1,200 containers leave Yiwu everyday. This makes Yiwu an obliged passage in the international trade landscape.

Yiwu has a stadium of Olympic size and quality and a large Christian Church. Many events associated with trade take place in Yiwu City. Yiwu also has a sizable Korean and Middle Eastern population, mostly working in the import and export businesses. Yiwu is also known as the "sock town" as it produces over three billion pairs of socks for Wal-Mart, Pringle and Disney annually. The town is also known as the producer number one of faddish jewellery in China.

Its 4C-grade airport has opened over a dozen of air routes to cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Shantou, Weifang, Shenzhen and so on. The Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway and Hangzhou-Jinhua Expressway pass through the city, making Yiwu an important local transportation hub. Express trains from Shanghai South Railway Station to Yiwu take less than three hours.