The Qiongdu were the local people at the time of contact with China. The
county of Qiongdu is attested in the area from the
Han dynasty. Under the
Song dynasty, a local lord was given the title of "
King of the Qiongdu" (
Qiongdu Wang). The area formed part of the medieval
Kingdom of Dali and was subdued by the
Mongolians from 1253 to 1256, after which it was incorporated into
Yunnan of the
Yuan dynasty. It was organized as the Jiandu Ningyuan duhufu, qianhufu, or wanhufu but continued to be often known as Jiandu. In
the book of his travels,
Marco Polo recorded that the people of Jiandu and its hinterland used no coins but rods of gold bullion reckoned in '
. A small change was made using half-catty pieces of molded salt, each reckoned as one-eightieth of a ' of pure gold. Under the
Qing, it was officially known as Ningyuan
Commandery but also continued to be referenced under the old name Jianchang. In the 19th century, it was the center of
Sichuan's production of "
white wax". In 1850, a
magnitude-7.5 earthquake killed more than 20,600 people in Xichang. The city walls in Xichang County, three gate towers—the west, south and north—and some prisons collapsed.
Roman Catholicism was introduced to Ningyuan in the 18th century by the
Paris Foreign Missions Society. The
Apostolic Vicariate of Kienchang was established in 1910 and was elevated to a diocese in 1946. The episcopal residence is located next to the
Cathedral of the Angels, Xichang. In the 1980s, its population was thought to be around 140,000 people. In 2012, it had an estimated population of 481,796. ==Geography==