Benxi
Once invisible on satellite imagery due to steel-mill smog—Benxi's iron deposits fed a century of smelting while the 'city that disappeared' now fights to remain viable as China's steel industry consolidates.
Iron ore made Benxi and iron ore may unmake it. This Liaoning Province city sits atop one of China's richest iron deposits, and since Japanese colonial engineers opened the Benxi Iron and Steel Works in 1905, the city's identity has been inseparable from smelting. Benxi Steel (Bengang) remains one of China's major producers of specialty steel—particularly the high-strength plates used in shipbuilding and heavy machinery. The company's output exceeds 10 million tonnes annually.
The environmental cost has been severe. In the 1980s, Benxi was so polluted that it was reportedly invisible on satellite imagery—smog from the steel works blanketed the valley so thickly that foreign observers called it 'the city that disappeared.' Air quality has improved since China's environmental crackdown began in the 2010s, but the city's Taizi River still carries industrial runoff, and surrounding forests bear the scars of acid rain.
Beyond steel, Benxi leverages its mountainous terrain for tourism. The Benxi Water Cave—one of the world's longest underground rivers navigable by boat—draws visitors year-round. Guanmen Mountain and Laotudingzi Nature Reserve attract hikers. This tourism-plus-industry dual economy mirrors Kitakyushu's transformation arc, though Benxi is decades behind in the environmental recovery process.
Benxi's steel monoculture faces the same structural pressures as every Chinese heavy-industry city: overcapacity mandates from Beijing, environmental compliance costs, and competition from coastal minimills with better logistics. The city's million-strong population depends on whether Bengang can produce enough specialty steel to justify its continued existence in an economy that no longer needs bulk metal from inland smelters.