Natural Resources
|Land resources
Located in the Songliao Plain, which is hailed as “the hometown of the black earth”, Jilin province has an arable area of 5.53 million hectares, accounting for around 29.5 percent of the provincial total land area. Its per capita arable land is 0.3 hectares, or twice the national average and almost equal to the world's average.
Forest resources
Jilin province is an important forestry region with 9.3 million hectares of forestry land, covering 43.9 percent of the province. Its Changbai Mountain area is known as "a sea of forests" and is one of China’s six largest forest regions.
Mineral resources
Jilin province has 158 types of mineral resources and reserves of 115 types of minerals have been discovered. It tops the country in wollastonite reserves. The province has plenty of mineral water resources, with the best coming from the Changbai Mountain area, where the water quality has been confirmed by international authorities. It is one of the world's three largest mineral water-rich areas, along with the Alps in Europe and Caucasus in Russia.
Grassland resources
Jilin is one of China's eighth largest pastoral areas and a major animal husbandry region. Its grasslands cover 5.84 million hectares.
Wild plants resources
Jilin province has a diversity of species, with 3,890 species of wild plants identified, accounting for 13 percent of the country’s plant species. It has more than 350 species of wild edible plants. The flora of Changbai Mountain makes Jilin a major Chinese herbal medicine producing area and one of China’s three treasure houses of natural medicine. Jilin has rich resources of ginseng, hawthorn, schisandra chinensis and rhodiola rosea.
Biodiversity
Siberian tigers photographed in Jilin province [Photo/Jilin news network]
Jilin province has always attached great importance to the protection of wild animals and plants. Since 1996, it has been a national leader in protection efforts, imposing an indefinite ban on hunting and commercial logging in natural forests, providing compensation for damage done to wildlife, and establishing nature reserves.
At present, there are more than 4,900 species of wild animals in the province, 136 of which are under national protection, such as the Siberian tiger, leopard, Chinese Merganser, and Siberian crane.
Water resources
Jilin province boasts rich water resources, with 1,648 rivers and 1,397 lakes, as well as 98 large and middle-scale reservoirs. It has water reserves of 40.4 billion cubic meters.
Energy resources
Jilin has proven coal resources of 2.67 billion tons, with 970 million tons minable. It has oil reserves of 1.56 billion tons, natural gas reserves of 189.8 billion cubic meters and identified oil shale reserves of 108.6 billion tons, ranking it first in the country. It also has coal bed gas reserves of 20.8 billion cubic meters.
Powder snow resources
Changbai Mountains in the east of Jilin – coupled with Jilin city and Changchun city in the middle of the province – are widely regarded as wonderlands of ice and snow.
On its own, Changbai Mountains boast some of the world's best-quality winter season resources and are known as one of the world's top three powder snow caps – along with the Swiss Alps and the Rocky Mountains.