With a total area of 26,600 square kilometers and a population of 11 million, Nanyang currently has jurisdiction over 1 city, 2 districts and 10 counties. As the largest and most populous city of 18 provincially administered cities in Henan, it is labeled as the famous historical and cultural city of China, the outstanding tourist city of China and a national garden City.

Nanyang is an important birthplace for Chu Culture and an essential gathering place of Han Culture, and one of the six largest cities in the Western Han Dynasty. Over thousands of years, Nanyang has been a splendid place cultivating outstanding personalities. Nanyang possesses numerous places of interest and cultural landscapes, with 13 state-level key cultural relics protection units and 94 provincial-level units.

Total grain output in Nanyang has exceeded 10 billion catties (5 million tons) for four consecutive years. As the source of the mid-line of the world-famous south-to-north water diversion, Nanyang’s water reserves and water per capita both rank first in Henan. It has a forest coverage rate of 36 percent, with 84 types of mineral resources. It is home to four distinctive seasons, and has abundant rainfall, and is thus an inhabitable place for people to live. With rich natural resources, Nanyang is now vigorously implementing a strategy of “invigorating Nanyang through Tourism”. Thanks to continuous efforts, Nanyang attracted a total of 10.8 million tourists from home and abroad in 2013, indicating that tourism is now becoming a promising pillar industry.

The Jiaozuo-Zhicheng Railway stretched from the south to the north and the Nanjing-Xi'an Railway is laid east to west. Expressways in Nanyang have been expanded to 553 km, ranking first in Henan, and an 80-kilometer beltway was built in the urban center. Arterial roads of 4 national highways and 14 provincial highways link together to make up the traffic network, and graded highways total 5,565 km. Nanyang Airport is one of the three major air gateways in Henan, with flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Guilin, and Chongqing. With the start of the double-tracking of Nanjing-Xi'an Railway as well as planning for the construction of the Zhengzhou-Chongqin High Speed Rail, Nanyang is becoming an essential transportation hub in the central area of the Chinese mainland.

Recently the city has witnessed a sustainable, rapid and sound development of its economy and society, with an annual economic growth rate of over 12 percent. People have lived and worked in peace and contentment, and economic strength has grown significantly. In 2008, the city’s GDP totaled 163.6 billion yuan ($26.67 billion), ranking third among 18 provincially administered cities in Henan. The position of a new industrial city has gradually been established, with 12 major competitive industries, such as photo electrics, bioenergy, metallurgy and building materials, electricity and textiles. In particular, energy construction has been greatly expanded. With the operation of the thermoelectric power stations, wind-generated electricity, bioelectricity and pumped storage plants, the installed power generation capacity will reach 5 million KW, making Nanyang into an important power base in Henan.

Nanyang has further improved its soft and hard environment, established sound customs, commodity inspection authorities and port administrations, first built 13 distinctive industry cluster districts, actively met the international requirements on park construction, infrastructure facilities, management services, technological innovation support and so on. It has also set up a foreign investment service center, aiming to provide a convenient and efficient full service for friends from home and abroad who plan to invest here. Nanyang has continuously accelerated the pace of opening-up and has been consecutively twinned with Nan'yō in Japan, Gat in Israel, Vrmland in Sweden, and has established close ties in scientific and technological exchanges, economic cooperation and trade with more than 110 countries and regions in the world.