Shangcheng county, which is 2,130 square kilometers in size, is home to 23 towns and 376 administrative villages and a total population of 800,000, including 690,000 in rural areas. It was identified as a national poverty-stricken county in 1986, a key county in national poverty alleviation and development work in 2000 and an important county for poverty alleviation in contiguous poverty-stricken areas of the Dabie Mountains in 2011. Sustained efforts by local people have helped the county rise out of poverty, with the Henan provincial Party committee and provincial government announcing on May 8, 2019 that Shangcheng was officially withdrawn from the list of poverty-stricken counties.
In recent years, the county Party committee and government have formulated a plan to carry out targeted poverty alleviation in Shangcheng county. To ensure poverty relief efforts are comprehensive and of high quality, the CPC Shangcheng County Committee and Shangcheng County People's Government have focused on six key points to promote consolidation and creatively carry out their work. The local committee and government have also explored a new model that combines poverty alleviation with efforts to build up grassroots Party organization, rural cooperatives and a more beautiful rural landscape. This model has led to the construction of 22 high-quality demonstration villages.
The county is committed to working hard for the long run, and stayed determined to accelerate the development of more poverty relief projects to ensure no one is left behind on the road to a moderately prosperous life.