The city's metro area, comprising 5 districts and 4 development areas, had a population of 3,, in , as the Shuangyang and Jiutai districts are not urbanized yet. The name of the city means "long spring" in Chinese. After the foundation of the People's Republic of China in , Changchun was established as the provincial capital of Jilin in Known locally as China's "City of Automobiles", [8] Changchun is an important industrial base with a particular focus on the automotive sector.
China in due to its high urban greening rate. Changchun is also one of the top 40 cities in the world by scientific research as tracked by the Nature Index according to the Nature Index Science Cities.
Changchun was initially established on imperial decree as a small trading post and frontier village during the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor in the Qing dynasty. Trading activities mainly involved furs and other natural products during this period. In , the Jiaqing Emperor selected a small village on the east bank of the Yitong River and named it "Changchun Ting".
At the end of the 18th century peasants from overpopulated provinces such as Shandong and Hebei began to settle in the region. In , the village was promoted into a city known as "Changchun Fu". After Russia's loss of the southernmost section of this branch as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of —, the Kuancheng station Kuanchengtze, in contemporary spelling became the last Russian station on this branch.
A special Russo-Japanese agreement of provided that Russian gauge tracks would continue from the "Russian" Kuancheng Station to the "Japanese" Changchun Station, and vice versa, tracks on the "gauge adapted by the South Manchuria Railway" i. An epidemic of pneumonic plague occurred in surrounding Manchuria from to , known as the Manchurian plague. The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the Russo-Japanese War of —05 and saw the transfer and assignment to Japan in the railway between Changchun and Port Arthur, and all its branches.
