ABSTRACT
Xiao Zhang Zhuang is a largish village of some 3502 people from 802 households and is one of 28 villages in the township of Xie Qiao in the Fuyang district of Yingshang County in the north of Anhui province. It has a total area of 422 hectares, 324 hectares of which is cultivated land, almost 1.6 mu per head, the rest being residential land, industrial land, forest and fishponds. It is situated in the southern part of the north Huai river plain (Huai Bei), an area of China notoriously prone to serious, at times disastrous floods. In the summer of 1991 a well publicised flood led to substantial loss of life and damage to property, while another serious flood in the summer of 1996, though not the cause of death led to substantial property damage (and difficulties in travelling to Xiao Zhang Zhuang). Anhui is traversed by the Huai River (Huai He) in the north and the Yangtse River (Chang Jiang) in the south and, with a rural per capita GDP of 1808 yuan in 1997 (Statistical Yearbook of China 1998, p.347), is in the poorest third of provinces in China.
