ABSTRACT
Dou Dian, is a largish village of 4100 people in 1230 households, about 45 kilometres south west of Beijing and 10 kilometres north of Fangshan, the county town. It has 5,200 mu of fields and with its residential and industrial belts, its total area is approx. 10,000 mu. Standing 38m. above sea level on the North China Plain, its surrounding area is flat, it benefits from underground water and has a sandy soil suitable for crop-growing. With the expansion of the urban area of Beijing and improvements in road and rail communications, Dou Dian, although surrounded by fields and still in a rural location, is increasingly being drawn into the suburbs of the capital: it has for many years had a railway station (some distance from the village centre) on the Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Shi Jia Zhuang lines, but with the building of the Beijing-Shi Jia Zhuang motorway running adjacent to the village in the last couple of years (a motorway planned to stretch all the way to Shenzhen in Guangdong province), it is within easy road access of Beijing and plenty of motor traffic travels between Dou Dian and Beijing daily. A trip to Beijing and back for a cadre or, indeed worker in Dou Dian, is increasingly a routine state of affairs.
