[3] The city is famous for its light industry commodity trade and vibrant market and as a regional tourist destination.

Even before 1600s, Yiwu men would carry sewing needles, threads, sugar chunks and other small commodities in their bamboo baskets, using a shoulder-pole and travel to surrounding rural villages in exchange for chicken feathers.

The cement boards over a stinky ditch nearby Huqingmen street, set up by the local government as the first marketplace in 1982, later became the present day Yiwu International Trade Mart after 27 years of development.

Yiwu's early culture has given birth to a number of notable figures in literature, art, military, education and engineering.

Among these were Chen Wangdao, China's first translator of the Communist Manifesto; Wu Han, historian and former deputy mayor of Beijing; Zhu Zhixi, the engineer who harnessed the Yellow River; Zhu Danxi, one of the four distinguished doctors of the Jin and Yuan Dynasties; Zong Ze, a well-known general from the Song dynasty who resisted aggression by the State of Jin; and the ancestors of Wang Leehom, a famous singer.

There has been talk of merging the Yiwu and Jinhua areas into a single municipal zone or economic entity, but this plan has yet to make its way into any formal discussion.

[10] The vice president of the Yiwu chapter of the federation, Zhou Danying, stated that in many cases an abusive partner reveals this trait post-marriage.

There have been a significant increase in Arab traders since the September 11 attacks, as Middle Eastern businessmen found it difficult to travel to the United States due to visa restrictions.

Its 4C-grade airport has over a dozen air routes to cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shantou, Weifang and Shenzhen.

The Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway and Hangzhou-Jinhua Expressway passes through the city, making Yiwu an important local transportation hub.

[19] At 8,111 miles, the Yiwu-Madrid container train route can be viewed as the longest goods railway line in the world.

Shipping containers moved along this route travel from China via Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France to Spain.

According to the Yiwu customs office statistics, the total of 65 container trains left the city for Europe and Central/Western Asia in 2015, with 5,242 TEU of cargo being imported or exported.