From the 8th to the 6th centuries BC, Hefei was the site of many small states, later a part of the
Chu kingdom. Many archaeological finds dating from this period have been made. The name 'Hefei' was first given to the county set up in the area under the
Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC. In the 3rd century AD, the
Battle of Xiaoyao Ford was fought at
Xiaoyao Ford () in Hefei.
Zhang Liao, a general of the
Wei state, led 800 picked cavalry to defeat the 200,000-strong army from Wei's rival state
Wu. Several decades of warring in Hefei between Wu and Wei followed this battle. During the 4th to the 6th centuries AD, this crucial border region between
northern and southern states was much fought over; its name and administrative status were consequently often changed. During the
Sui (581–618) and
Tang (618–907) periods, it became the seat of Lu prefecture—a title it kept until the 15th century, when it became a superior prefecture named Luzhou. The present city dates from the
Song dynasty (960–1126), the earlier Hefei having been some distance farther north. In the 10th year of
Xining (, 1077 AD), the taxes collected from the Luchow Prefecture were 50315 Guan, approximately 25 million today's Chinese Yuan, with a ranking of the amount of taxes was the 11th(following Kaifeng, Hangzhou, Qinzhou, Chuzhou, Chengdu, Zizhou, Xingyuan, Mianzhou, Zhenzhou, Suzhou) among all the prefectures of Song Dynasty. During the 10th century, it was for a while the capital of the independent
Wu kingdom (902–938) and was an important center of the
Southern Tang state (937–975). After 1127 it became a center of the defenses of the
Southern Song dynasty (1126–1279) against the
Jin (
Jurchen) invaders in the
Jin–Song wars, as well as a flourishing center of trade between the two states. When the
Chinese Republic was founded in 1911, the superior prefecture was abolished, and the city took the name of Hefei. The city was known as
Luchow or
Liu-tcheou (,
p Luzhou) during the
Ming and
Qing dynasties (after the 14th century to the 19th century). Hefei was the temporary capital for Anhui from 1853 to 1862. It was renamed as Hefei County in 1912. Following the Chinese victory in the
Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945, Hefei was made the capital of Anhui. Before
World War II, Hefei remained essentially an administrative center and the regional market for the fertile plain to the south. It was a collecting center for grain, beans, cotton, and
hemp, as well as a center for handicraft industries manufacturing cloth, leather, bamboo goods, and ironware. The construction in 1912 of the
Tianjin–Pukou railway, farther east, for a while made Hefei a provincial backwater, and much of its importance passed to
Bengbu. In 1932–36, however, a Chinese company built a railway linking Hefei with
Yuxikou (on the
Yangtze opposite
Wuhu) to the southeast and with the
Huai River at
Huainan to the north. While this railway was built primarily to exploit the rich
coalfield in northern Anhui, it also did much to revive the economy of the Hefei area by taking much of its produce to Wuhu and Nanjing. Although Hefei was a quiet market town of only about 30,000 in the mid-1930s, its population grew more than tenfold in the following 20 years. The city's administrative role was strengthened by the transfer of the provincial government from
Anqing in 1945, but much of its new growth derived from its development as an industrial city. Hefei was designated the provincial capital in 1952. A
cotton mill was opened in 1958, and a thermal generating plant, using coal from Huainan, was established in the early 1950s. It also became the seat of an industry producing
industrial chemicals and chemical
fertilizers. In the late 1950s an iron and steel complex was built. In addition to a machine-tool works and engineering and agricultural machinery factories, the city has developed an aluminum industry and a variety of light industries. Hefei's development was advanced by the
Third Front construction. In 1970, the
University of Science and Technology of China relocated to Hefei. It is one of the best technological universities in the country. In 1978, the
Chinese Academy of Sciences opened a Hefei branch. Several electronics institutes were moved from Beijing to Hefei in the early 1980s. The establishment of these educational and research and development institutions in Hefei were a foundations for its subsequent growth in innovation. In 1991, Hefei was one of the first Chinese cities to establish a High-Tech Industrial Zone. A period of rapid growth began in 2005, when Hefei party secretary
Sun Jinlong initiated a strategy of industry-based city building. Sun prioritized the automobile, electric appliance, and equipment manufacturing sectors of the city's economy. The city government established a department for attracting investment and sent teams around the country to recruit businesses to Hefei. Sun also launched a construction program of neighborhood redevelopment, road system improvement, rail system, and a new international airport. Hefei's GDP grew at the highest rate of any Chinese provincial capital during Sun's tenure. Since the 2010s, Hefei has developed high-tech industries and an innovation-driven economy, including semi-conductors and alternative energy economic sectors. ==Geography==