Enshi Prefecture used to be called Ezhou, why should it be changed to Enshi Prefecture?

1. The administrative division under the jurisdiction of Autonomous Prefecture is the original Enshi administrative division, and its capital is also located in Enshi City, where the former Enshi administrative office is located. After the founding of New China, the name of Enshi area has been changed several times, but its full name has always been crowned with the word "Enshi";

2. Enshi is one of several very important historical and cultural cities in Hubei Province, which enjoys a good reputation at home and abroad; The former Enshi area is one of the main bases for the export of agricultural and sideline commodities in Hubei Province. Historically, Enshi had close contacts with both inside and outside the province and at home and abroad. In recent years, in the economic exchanges with domestic and foreign countries, foreigners are very familiar with Enshi, but they are generally unfamiliar with western Hubei.

3. According to the Regulations on the Administration of Geographical Names and the Law on Regional National Autonomy, the names of ethnic autonomous areas should be composed in the order of local names, ethnic names and administrative status. "Western Hubei" is neither a reflection of the scope of administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of our state nor a local name, but "Enshi" basically represents and governs the current administrative divisions of our state in history.

4. The name "western Hubei" has influenced the foreign economic and cultural exchanges of our state to some extent, mainly in two aspects: Enshi is only a part of "western Hubei", that is, southwest Hubei, but not northwest Hubei. People used to think that "western Hubei" refers to Yichang, Yunyang and a part of the original Enshi, and its English translation is "western Hubei", so Yichang. The abbreviation "Western Hubei Special Zone" is easily confused with "Ezhou" in the province, which leads to the misuse of some funds and letters and affects the production and operation of many enterprises. The broad masses of cadres and people reacted strongly to this and demanded to change the name of the autonomous prefecture.

Enshi is not the only autonomous prefecture with the same name among the 30 autonomous prefectures in China. Linxia in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Changji in Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Dali in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Wenshan in Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture and Chuxiong in Wei Chu all have the same names. In addition, there are Yanji in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Yining in Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. There is only one word difference between the state name and the city name.