Mechelen is an important city of Flemish Brabant in Belgium. It is situated between Brussels, capital of Belgium and Antwerp, capital of Flemish, with an area of 4658 hektares. It has a population of about 100 thousand, among which most of them are Fleming who can speak both English and French. 90% of the people here are Romanists.

Mechelen has a long history. More than 200 historic sites of culture and art are still in a fairly good condition. The world-famous Sint-Rombouts Cathedral has a history of more than 540 years. The bell tower of the cathedral is 97.3 meters high with a complete group of bells including the biggest one with a weight of 8,884 kilograms and the smallest one of 5.6 kilograms. The Bell School established in 1947 has hundreds of students from all over the world.

Mechelen citizens are proud of their arras industry. A lot of arrases are treasured by wealthy people. There is a famous Toy Museum in the city. The head factory where the large-scale sight seeing bus, transportation bus for airport and passenger cars are manufactured is located here. These vehicles enjoy good reputation throughout Belgium and even Europe. Some of the vehicles are exported to Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. The head factory of Houwis Transformer has great productivity. Branch offices are set up in Africa and Indonesia and the products are exported to North America. The Euro-Union Aluminum Tin Plant which is praised as "the First of Belgium" with a large scale and advanced equipments is located in Mechelen.

In 1993, Mechelen and Chengdu were concluded as sister cities.