city, eastern Jilin (Kirin) sheng (province), far northeastern China. It is a county-level shi (municipality) and the administrative seat of Yanbian Chaoxianzu (Korean) Autonomous Prefecture, which covers a mountainous area on the North Korean–Chinese border, more than half of whose inhabitants are of Korean ancestry.

Until the late 19th century the area was almost completely undeveloped. Basically it comprises the fertile Tumen River valley and the wild ranges of the Changbai Mountains. Chinese settlers began to move into the area illegally in 1820–50, and in 1860 the Chinese government lifted the ban on settlement to preempt possible Russian encroachment. The area, however, was so remote that few Chinese settlers went there, whereas Koreans moved there in great numbers. In 1881 special bureaus were set up to control and tax the Korean immigrants. In 1902 a Yanji prefecture was established and later in 1912 demoted to a county with the same name.

The area was the source of constant border disputes, first with Korea and then—after the establishment of the Japanese protectorate in Korea in 1905—with Japan. Under the Japanese occupation of the 1930s, railways were completed through the area, linking Tumen to Jilin (Kirin) to the west and to Jiamusi to the north. The railroads did much to open up the area, and further lines were then constructed to exploit the forests of the Changbai Mountains.

Yanji is the principal commercial hub of the Yanbian Chaoxianzu Autonomous Prefecture and is a collecting point for local agricultural products. It is also an industrial centre of the region, with food- and timber-processing operations and factories manufacturing textiles, pharmaceuticals, electronic equipment, and electrical appliances as economic mainstays. Agricultural implements are also manufactured. There is a secondary industrial centre some 9 miles (15 km) to the south at Longjing, where there are machinery works, a power station, and a paper mill.

Since it is the capital of the autonomous prefecture, Yanji is also an important cultural centre for the ethnic Korean population, providing radio and newspaper services in Korean and maintaining extensive cultural and economic relationships with both North and South Korea. Yanbian University (founded 1949) is the largest institution of higher education in the city; over the years, several colleges and schools (including those for medicine, agriculture, and teacher training) have been merged into the university, which itself was reconstituted in 1996. Pop. (2002 est.) 348,317.