Xuchang

During the early Zhou dynasty, the Xuchang region was granted to the Xu family (Xǔ (許/许)) of the Jiang surname and became the State of Xu, ruled by Xu Wenshu. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period, Xuchang was successively occupied by the states of Zheng and Chu, and the Xu family was later relocated to Ye County by the Chu state. Xuchang served as the warlord Cao Cao's de facto capital during the late Eastern Han dynasty. After finding the old capital Luoyang ravaged by war, Cao moved the imperial court and Emperor Xian to what is now Xuchang in 196. In 220, Cao Cao's son and successor Cao Pi officially declared the city as the capital of the newly established state of Cao Wei. The city was renamed "Xuchang" taken to mean "Xu Rising". The Wei emperors held court at Xuchang until the capital was moved to Luoyang in the 220s.

Xuchang ranges in latitude from 33° 16' to 34° 24' N and in longitude from 113° 03' to 114° 190' E. Xuchang has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa), with four distinct seasons. Winters are cool and dry, summers hot and humid, spring begins early and is warm, and autumn is mild and provides a reasonable transition. Rain mainly falls from May to September, as more than 70% of the annual precipitation occurs then. The city has an annual mean temperature of at 14.6 °C (58.3 °F), and its highest average monthly temperature is 27.0 °C (80.6 °F) in July and the lowest is 0.7 °C (33.3 °F) in January. Just over 700 millimetres (28 in) of precipitation falls each year, the growing season averages 217 days and there is 2280 hours of sunshine per year.

Xuchang is an important center of the Chinese tobacco industry. The manufacturing industry the city is best known for is wigs and hair extensions with exports worth about $1 billion in 2016. The industry started around 1900 when German merchants purchased hair from the local area. It was revived in the 1980s and in 1990 a local entrepreneur Zheng Youquan merged a number of smaller hair manufacturing workshops into Rebecca Hair Products, a larger entity that quickly expanded to international markets and became the largest wig maker in the world.