Zhaotong City, also known as Qiu Cheng, Crane City, prefecture-level city under the jurisdiction of Yunnan Province, is located in the northeastern part of Yunnan Province, located in the hinterland of the Wumeng Mountain Region in the combination of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, along the lower reaches of the Jinsha River, situated in the transition zone of the Sichuan Basin to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau uplift, the east side of Bijie, Guizhou Province, south side of the city of Qujing in Yunnan Province, as well as Kunming City, the west side of the city is adjacent to the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province with the boundary of the Jinsha River, and north side of Yibin City and Luzhou City in Sichuan with the boundary of the Jinsha River. Yibin City and Luzhou City to the north, adjacent to the Jinsha River as the boundary, with an area of 23,000 square kilometers, and the built-up area of the Zhaoyang central city reaches 62 square kilometers. As of 2022, Zhaotong City has 1 district, 9 counties and 1 county-level city under its jurisdiction, with the municipal government residing in Zhaoyang District, which is a city integrating "mountainous areas, old revolutionary areas and ethnic scattered areas". By the end of 2022, Zhaotong had a resident population of 4.949 million. Zhaotong City is historically an important gateway from Yunnan Province to Sichuan and Guizhou Provinces, an important channel for the culture of the Central Plains to enter Yunnan, one of the three major birthplaces of Yunnan culture, and the key to China's "South Silk Road", known as "the key to the South Yunnan, the throat of the West Shu," and is a link between Yunnan and the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the West Bank. It is an important channel connecting Yunnan to the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone, and is a two-way corridor from the mainland to South Asia and Southeast Asia and from Yunnan to the mainland. Zhaotong city is rich in hydro energy resources, there are three giant power stations in the territory of Xiluodu, Xiangjiaba, Baihetan, coal, sulfur reserves in the province's first place, is the world's high-quality seed base of tianma, the world's potato high seed potato capital, the largest high-quality apple base in southern China, China's hometown of cribbage. 2022, Zhaotong city realized a gross regional product of 154.102 billion yuan, an increase of 3.7% over the previous year.