Fangshan District Archives

Fangshan District Archives

The Fangshan District Archives is a base for patriotic education.

The Fangshan District Archives was established in 1960 as a district-level national comprehensive archives, serving as the permanent repository for archival materials in the Fangshan area. At its inception, the archives only preserved 5,370 volumes of official documents from 36 fonds. After nearly half a century of development, as of December 2014, the archives currently house collections from 200 fonds, totaling 231,232 volumes (items), with a shelving length of 2,113 meters. This includes 205,151 volumes of paper records, 173 CDs, 21 audio reels, 47 video reels, 11,452 photographic items, and 1,793 physical objects. There are also 13,240 bound reference materials and 16,866 electronic files. The collection includes important archives created by various government agencies, organizations, enterprises, and institutions across the district during the Qing Dynasty, Republican era, and post-establishment of the People’s Republic, as well as precious historical and cultural documents reflecting the region’s heritage. The earliest archival materials date back to land sale contracts from the Qing Dynasty, with the oldest being a deed for land transaction from the Kangxi era of the Qing Dynasty (1665 AD).

The revolutionary history archives consist of 266 volumes created between 1937 and 1949. These primarily document the work plans, summaries, opinions, directives, reports, questionnaires, and statistical tables related to the struggle against enemies, party building, government establishment, land reform, legal affairs, public security, civil affairs, industrial and commercial taxation, cultural education, and agricultural production led by the county party committees and governments of former Fangshan County and Liangxiang County. The Republican-era archives include 1,193 volumes that record basic conditions of Fangshan County and Liangxiang County from 1934 to 1948. Archives from 1949 to 1958 systematically document the socialist transformation of agriculture and capitalist industry and commerce, as well as the recovery of production and construction in former Hebei Province’s Fangshan County and Liangxiang County. Archives from 1958 to 1999 record the political, economic, scientific, and cultural developments of Fangshan District (formerly Beijing’s Zhoukoudian District and Fangshan County) across different periods.

Textual archives: These include meeting minutes from the standing committees of district (county) party committees, documents from various party representative conferences, records of meetings from the district (county) government (people's committee, revolutionary committee), materials from people’s congresses across different terms, documents on administrative divisions, organizational structures, and staffing such as proposals, approvals, notices, survey statistics, and personnel rosters. Also included are opinions, reports, summaries, and lists related to work targets, approval forms distinguishing former industrial and commercial operators as laborers, and materials on implementing policies for those who surrendered or defected. Agricultural and rural production, management, distribution, and statistical notices, plans, various economic contracting agreements, diversified operations, survey statistics, and census materials are available. There are also investigation reports, planning opinions, directives, summaries, and industrial census materials for transportation, communication, and postal services. Financial and banking, industrial and commercial management notices, plans, summaries, reports, and regulations are included. Urban construction, real estate management notices, opinions, regulations, reports, and data on private housing reforms and property surveys are part of the collection. Medical and health, family planning work plans, arrangements, summaries, and statistical tables are also preserved. Cultural, heritage, educational, and sports work plans, summaries, notices, reports, and statistical data are included. Science and technology work plans, opinions, summaries, reports, as well as materials related to the "Spark Program" and "Science and Technology Poverty Alleviation" are part of the holdings. Materials on ethnic and religious work, opinions, plans, and summaries are preserved. Reports and investigations on preferential treatment and relief work are also included. There are registration forms and resettlement plans for demobilized soldiers and military families. Arrangements, opinions, management methods, statistical tables, and registration forms for educated youth sent to rural areas for re-education are preserved. Employee recruitment registration forms are included. Geological exploration reports, statistics, summaries, and information on coal and ore mining that reflect Fangshan’s natural resources are also part of the archives. Materials on arrangements, plans, summaries, reports, and policy implementations related to movements such as party rectification, rectification campaigns, commune rectification, “One Strike Three Anti,” “Four Cleanups,” and the Cultural Revolution are preserved. There are also materials documenting exemplary representatives of Fangshan in the 1960s—“The Twelve Red Flags.” Records of national model workers from the 1970s and 1980s such as Xu Qingwen, Zhang Zhenliang, and the villages of Nanhanjie and Doukuai are included. Materials on the thousands who worked together to dig the “Shengtian Canal” from 1974 to 1976 are preserved. There are also materials reflecting visits by national leaders to Fangshan, contributions of white marble to the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, and a replica of the handwritten inscription by Jiang Zemin for the village of Tangshang in Xiayunding Township, Fangshan District, reading “Without the Communist Party, there would be no New China,” created for the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party.

Scientific and technological archives: These include directives, plans, summaries, investigation reports, current maps, schematic diagrams, and applied materials related to agricultural regional planning. There are engineering design plans, construction, and as-built drawings for reservoirs, rivers, and irrigation districts. Hydrogeological, meteorological, climatic, and groundwater planning and survey materials are included. Building construction project files and as-built drawings are also preserved.

Accounting archives: These include annual accounting reports from some filing entities.

Audiovisual archives: These include photos and video materials of visits, inspections, and guidance by national and Beijing municipal leaders in Fangshan, photos of international friends visiting Fangshan, images and videos from the Fangshan District Party Congress, People’s Congress, and Political Consultative Conference, materials on agriculture, water conservancy, medical care, health, culture, and sports, before-and-after photos of urban construction, and images of scenic spots and historical sites in Fangshan. Among the earlier materials are photos taken by Japanese invaders in 1940 showing the living conditions of villagers in Henancun, Hebeizhen; and photos of the celebration of the founding of the People’s Republic of China by the people of Fangshan in 1949.

Physical archives: These include awards for high-yield summer grain and oil issued by the State Council, trophies, certificates, banners, awards, plaques, and other honors awarded by the Ministry of National Defense, the State Education Commission, the National Family Planning Commission, the State Sports Commission, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Forestry, the Environmental Protection Administration, the All-China Women’s Federation, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, and others for conscription, basic education, family planning, sports, healthcare, agricultural and forestry production, and environmental protection. Mineral and rock specimens from the Fangshan area and seals retired by filing entities are also included.

Reference materials: These include books on politics, economy, culture, history, and reference works, documents from the CPC Central Committee, the State Council, the Hebei Provincial Party Committee, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, the Beijing Municipal Government, and the Tongxian Prefectural Party Committee from the 1950s to the 1980s on party rectification, political campaigns, legal affairs, anti-spying, military affairs, industry and transportation, finance and trade, farmland and water conservancy, among others. Also preserved are bound volumes of newspapers such as the People’s Daily, Farmers’ Daily, and Beijing Daily. Among the most precious items are pre-liberation editions of Selected Works of Mao Zedong, the Liangxiang County Annals compiled in the 15th year of the Guangxu reign and the 13th year of the Republic of China, the Fangshan County Annals compiled in the 17th year of the Republic of China, the Shangfangshan Annals reflecting tourism and landscapes in Fangshan, and bound volumes of the Beijing Daily from 1950 to the present.