Shanxi

Shanxi (山西) is a province of the People's Republic China. It is in the northern part of the country and has the Yellow River flowing through it.. In 2005, 37.2 million people lived there. The number of people was growing each year by just over four per cent. The name Shanxi means "mountain's west" or "west of the mountains", as it is west of the Taihang Mountains.

Although in pinyin, the name of the neighboring province to the west, "Shaanxi", is spelled exactly the same as "Shanxi", the only difference in how the two words are pronounced is that the first syllable in "Shanxi" is said using the first tone in Mandarin, while the first syllable in "Shaanxi" is said with the third tone. Since tone markers are not usually used to show how to pronounce the two different names, the first word in "Shaanxi" is spelled using the Gwoyeu Romatzyh method instead, which indicates tones by adding extra letters to a syllable.

The abbreviation of Shanxi is Jin (晋), since there is another province, Shandong (山东), that has the word "Shan" (山) in it, meaning "mountain" in Chinese.

Its major cities are its capital Taiyuan, Datong, Changzhi and Yangquan.

Notable residents
Mi Fu, poet