Glossary: township (xiang)
DEFINITION:
The basic government administrative unit below the county level in rural areas. Townships existed before people’s communes were organized in 1958 and were reconstituted when production brigades and communes were disbanded during the period 1982-85. Each township has a people’s congress and an elected chairman. In the mid-1980s, townships were about the same size as the communes they had replaced. (See also county, people’s communes, productions brigades.)