China's Huai River Policy and South-North Distinctions in Population Migration

Central heating, also called district heating, is a heating system run by a central cogeneration plant through a system of insulated pipes stretching into heating users. The word "central" stands for "centralized" instead of "scattered" or "decentralized." Central heating in China is closely related to the nation's policy as a huge amount of energy exhaustion leads to high costs and air pollution. Therefore, the country has set its winter heating boundary since establishing the central heating systems in the 1950s. The boundary formed a fixed border to classify areas with heating systems and regions without them. The areas with cold winters could have state-planned central heating systems, while the areas with warmer winters did not have those systems. The boundary was set according to the winter temperature level and hasn't changed since the 1950s. The borderline coincides with two critical geographical locations in China: the Huai River and Qinling Mountains. The policy of classifying the heating and non-heating regions is called the Huai River policy.


Keywords: Central Winter Heating, Heating Boundary, Population Migration, Huai River Policy