ABSTRACT
The twenty-three villages which make up ganglong township—the focus of this study—are today located in Tianjin’s Jinghai County. The northern tip of jinghai county is 35 kilometers southwest of Tianjin proper, but Ganglong Township is in the southern tip of Jinghai County, about 80 kilometers southwest of Tianjin (see Figures 1 and 2 on the following page). The purpose of this chapter is to place the Ganglong villages in their larger geographic, economic, historical and administrative context. It also provides ample evidence that there is nothing extraordinary about this township that should prevent generalizing the findings of this study to many other townships in China.
