A county-level city has "secured" the second-largest high-speed railway hub station in the whole province.
According to the news from Zjol, on October 9, the newly built Yiwu Railway Station building was officially put into operation. The entire waiting area of the station has been moved from the comprehensive transportation hub building to the new station building. The reconstructed elevated station building of Yiwu Railway Station is the largest high-speed railway hub station among all county-level cities in China, and also the second largest high-speed railway hub station in Zhejiang Province, second only to Hangzhou East Railway Station. After the fourth-quarter railway operation schedule takes effect on October 11, the total number of passenger trains operating at Yiwu Railway Station will rise from 226 before the schedule adjustment to 272.
Relevant responsible persons stated that the completion and operation of the new Yiwu Railway Station building will become a "city living room" serving the whole city and radiating central Zhejiang, effectively breaking the bottleneck of passenger transport organization of the existing station, further meeting the rapidly growing passenger flow demand in Yiwu, greatly facilitating people's travel, and is of great significance for strengthening Yiwu's important economic status as a core city in the central Zhejiang urban agglomeration, empowering the high-quality development of Yiwu's international trade, cultural and tourism industries, and facilitating the interconnection and coordinated development of the central Zhejiang metropolitan area.
In November 2022, the reconstruction and expansion project of Yiwu Railway Station started construction. After more than three years, the reconstructed station has a scale of 11 platforms and 27 tracks, with a construction area of about 75,000 square meters. This scale ranks second only to Hangzhou East Railway Station in Zhejiang Province. Above Yiwu is Hangzhou; below Yiwu are Ningbo, Wenzhou, Jinhua... A county-level city has firmly taken the second place in the provincial railway hub sequence.
This is not "a small county town accidentally gets a large station". Known as "World Yiwu", Yiwu's trade pattern determines that the city's population is always in a state of high-frequency inflow and outflow. Data shows that by the end of 2025, the city's registered population is about 950,000, and the permanent resident population is 1.943 million. According to the actual population caliber, this figure even reaches 3.42 million, of which more than 2 million are migrant population, and more than 30,000 foreign businessmen reside here permanently.
The existing station building of Yiwu Railway Station was put into use in 2006, with a construction area of about 17,800 square meters. At that time, the annual passenger throughput was 4.248 million person-times. By 2016, this figure had exceeded 10 million, reaching 10.58 million person-times, nearly 2.5 times higher than that in 2006. In recent years, the passenger flow of Yiwu Railway Station has been continuously increasing, making it the largest and busiest station among all county-level cities in China.
The newly put into use elevated station building is designed according to the passenger flow standard for the next one or two decades. According to interviews with relevant staff by local media, Yiwu Railway Station has reserved 3 platforms and 6 tracks, with a total scale of up to 14 platforms and 33 tracks. It will become an important hub of the Shanghai-Kunming Corridor of the national "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" high-speed railway network, and is expected to meet the travel demand of more than 50 million person-times per year at the peak in the future.
Yiwu's hub status has also been confirmed in the national overall plan. As early as in the 13th Five-Year Plan Modern Comprehensive Transportation System Development Plan issued by the State Council in 2017, it was proposed to promote the construction of national comprehensive transportation hubs including Jinhua-Yiwu. After the comprehensive transportation plan of Yiwu's territorial space was approved and announced this year, it was further proposed to enhance the capacity of the national comprehensive transportation hub and strengthen the main hub function of Yiwu Railway Station.
With the operation of the new station building, after the fourth-quarter railway operation schedule is implemented on October 11, the total number of passenger trains handled at Yiwu Railway Station will increase from 226 before the schedule adjustment to 272. Five railways including Shanghai-Kunming High-speed Railway, Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-speed Railway, Shanghai-Kunming Railway, Ningbo-Jinhua Railway and the under-construction Jinhua-Yiwu Third and Fourth Lines are interconnected here. The passenger transport channels cover the Yangtze River Delta, connect North China, South China, Southwest China and the coastal areas of Zhejiang and Fujian, and directly reach 26 provincial-level administrative regions across the country.
From the perspective of local authorities, the surge of line network density and the improvement of accessibility have lifted Yiwu Railway Station out of the status of a "passing intermediate station", making it a modern hub-type passenger station with complete functions and strong radiation capacity.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Urban Evolution", written by Yang Huan, and published with authorization from 36Kr.