Where is Yongkang?
A county-level city under Jinhua, Zhejiang Province.
About one hour's drive from Yiwu, about two hours from Hangzhou and about three hours from Shanghai (high-speed rail to Hangzhou/Jinhua, then change).
In one sentence: Yongkang is a producing area — a place where things are made; Yiwu is a market — a place where things are sold. The two are not the same thing.
What does Yongkang make?
Hardware. That is its base.
It breaks down into several blocks: thermal cups (the cup industry), power tools, security doors, cookware, weighing instruments (scales), scooters, non-ferrous metal processing.
The best known of these is thermal cups. China is the world's largest producer and exporter of thermal cups, and Yongkang is one of the concentrated producing areas (together with Wuyi and Jinyun it is called "Yong-Wu-Jin").
How the product is made, how to choose materials and which standards to look at are covered in Buying from China: Thermal Cups (the product article). This one is only about the place.
Town by town: who makes what?
Only four towns have hard evidence; for the rest we could not find any.
| Town | What it makes | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Zhiying | Non-ferrous metal processing, the cup industry, scooters, weighing instruments, cookware; above-scale industrial output value over RMB 6.5 billion | Zhejiang Legal Daily 2026-05-25 (citing the town government) |
| Huajie | Titanium Cup Street: opened in August 2025, 32 companies have moved in, trade volume in the first half of the year over RMB 100 million, targeting a "National Titanium Town" | Xinhua Zhejiang 2026-09-08 (supplied by the Yongkang Municipal Party Committee Publicity Department) |
| Fangyan | A tourism town (Fangyan scenic area) plus agriculture. The town government's full 2025 work summary contains no mention of "the cup industry" | Town government public document |
| Gushan | The territorial spatial plan positions it as "centred on hardware manufacturing", without naming thermal cups | Town government plan |
A warning in the other direction: some articles online say "town X in Yongkang specialises in thermal cups", but if you check that town's government documents you may find not a single word about it. Town-level information is easier to fabricate than city-level information.
The Yongkang municipal government has no published "one town, one product" style document on the division of industries between towns — that is what we confirmed after searching, not something we failed to look for.
What these five Zhiying categories are (read literally; for specific product lines you have to ask locally):
- Non-ferrous metal processing: melting, rolling and extrusion of copper and aluminium — this is upstream, supplying cups, cookware and scooters.
- The cup industry: thermal cups, stainless steel cups.
- Scooters: electric scooters, children's scooters.
- Weighing instruments: electronic scales, platform scales, price-computing scales.
- Cookware: stainless steel pots, non-stick pans, pressure cookers.
Why these five cluster in the same town: they all need "metal + stamping + surface treatment" and share the same equipment and the same people. Switch to another category and you do not have to switch the whole supply chain.
How complete is Yongkang's supporting chain?
Take a thermal cup apart: stainless steel sheet, liner drawing, welding, vacuuming, polishing, surface treatment, plastic cap, packaging.
All eight stages can be found in Yongkang at specialist factories — from mould development to stainless steel sheet processing to surface treatment, the loop is closed.
That is what an industrial belt means: not "one factory can do everything", but "many factories each do one stage, and together they make a cup".
How do you get to Yongkang?
Three routes, depending on where you land first.
| From | How to get there | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Yiwu | Taxi or intercity bus | About 1 hour |
| Hangzhou | High-speed rail to Yongkang South Station | About 1.5–2 hours |
| Shanghai | High-speed rail to Hangzhou/Jinhua, then change | About 3 hours |
| Guangzhou | High-speed rail to Jinhua, then change | About 7–8 hours |
Station name: Yongkang South Station (high-speed rail). Train numbers and fares are not printed here — they change by season; check 12306 on the day.
From Yiwu: a taxi is the most direct, about 1 hour; there is also an intercity bus, which is slower.
One practical reminder: Yongkang has no market like Yiwu's. You come to Yongkang to visit factories, not to look at samples. For samples, go to Yiwu.
Yongkang and Yiwu: how do you combine them?
One hour apart, two different roles.
- Yiwu: the market. Small consumer goods from all over the country are brought here to be sold; you look at samples, compare prices and see thousands of categories in one go.
- Yongkang: the producing area. If you make hardware, cups or tools, you come here to visit factories, see production lines and discuss orders.
Many buyers' route: first to Yiwu to look at samples and compare prices, then spend a day in Yongkang visiting factories. The reverse works too.
Do not treat the two as the same place. The "Yongkang goods" you see in Yiwu have been brought there to be sold; if you really want to discuss production, you have to go to Yongkang.
Visiting factories in Yongkang: how many in a day?
Two towns a day at most.
- Fix the category first: cups, tools, doors, cookware — different categories sit in different towns
- Then check the distances: from the Yongkang urban area to the towns is mostly within half an hour's drive
- Two a day: one in the morning, one in the afternoon, leaving time for travel and conversation in between
- Book the distant ones first: factory schedules are harder to change than markets
Sources (2026-10-30)
| Fact | Conclusion | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Yongkang is a county-level city under Jinhua, Zhejiang | ✅ Confirmed | Yongkang Municipal Government (yk.gov.cn) |
| Zhiying town: non-ferrous metal processing, the cup industry, scooters, weighing instruments, cookware; above-scale output value over RMB 6.5 billion | ✅ Confirmed (citing the town government) | Zhejiang Legal Daily 2026-05-25 |
| Huajie town: Titanium Cup Street, 32 companies, first-half trade volume over RMB 100 million | ✅ Confirmed | Xinhua Zhejiang 2026-09-08 (supplied by the municipal publicity department) |
| Fangyan town is a tourism town; the government work summary has no "cup industry" | ✅ Confirmed (negative evidence) | Town government public document |
| Gushan town "centred on hardware manufacturing", without naming thermal cups | ✅ Confirmed | Town government territorial spatial plan |
| More than 2,900 cup and flask companies / 600 million units a year / 248 above-scale companies / annual output value RMB 18 billion | ⚠️ Reported by media | People's Daily 2026-04-08 / Economic Daily 2026-08-14 (the latter says "relevant research shows", without saying who did the research) |
| "Yong-Wu-Jin" accounts for more than 70% of the national total | ⚠️ Reported by media (the weakest) | No first-hand institution |
| 80% of leading European and American brands have products made here | ❌ Deleted | No first-hand source |
| Thermal cup exports of RMB 5 billion in the first quarter | ✅ Confirmed | Transcript of the State Council Information Office press conference (2026-04-14), the exact wording of Wang Jun, Deputy Director-General of the General Administration of Customs |
One point that must be stated: the Yongkang 2025 statistical bulletin has no dedicated cup-industry section (it gives only 1,062 above-scale industrial enterprises citywide and above-scale sales output value of RMB 106.159 billion), so the figures "2,900 companies / 600 million units / 248 companies / RMB 18 billion" can only be labelled "according to media reports".
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