Land Resources
Land resources in Shaoxing were first in records in the Wanli Period (1573-1619) of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). According to Records of Shaoxing Prefecture written in the Wanli Period of the Ming Dynasty, in there were farming lands of 2,184,279 mu in both Shanyin and Kuaiji county in 1391, the 24th year of the Hongwu Period of the Ming Dynasty. In the 13th year (1585) of the Wanli Period of the Ming Dynasty, the two counties had 2,215,007 mu of farming lands in total.

In the Records of Shaoxing Prefecture compiled in the Qianlong Period of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Shanyin and Kuaiji counties had 2,246,859 mu of land in 1917 (the 10th year of the Kangxi Period of the Qing Dynasty). In the 49th year of the Qianlong Period, the two counties had an aggregate land area of 2,263,086 mu.

According to Revised Manuscripts of General History of Zhejiang Province, Shaoxing County in 1929 reported that the private and public lands in the county totaled 2,672,558 mu. In 1935, the Analysis of County Areas in Zhejiang listed Shaoxing’s area as 3,124,832.26 mu. According to Ningbo Prefecture Administration, it was reported by Zhejiang Banking Economic Yearbook published by Zhejiang Statistics Bureau that Shaoxing County’s total area was 2.8735 million mu minus the bay areas, which was 1,915.66 square kilometers after the conversion.

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the area of Shaoxing County changed 11 times in the 1950s. In 1959, the total area was 1,441 square kilometers, which was 2.1615 million mu minus bay areas. In 1983 when Shaoxing prefecture was canceled and Shaoxing municipality and Shaoxing County were established, the county occupied an area of 13.92 million square kilometers, equal to 2.0880 million mu. In July 2000 when the administrative divisions were readjusted, five towns (Dongpu Township, Manshan Township, Gaobu Township and Jianhu Township) in the county were annexed by Yucheng District of Shaoxing Municipality. The round area cut off from the county totaled 239.70 square kilometers. This way, the county’s total area was reduced to 1,252.81 square kilometers, equal to 1.8492 million mu.

Water Resources
Shaoxing County is not rich with water resources. The average annual aggregate is 1.078 billion cubic meters, including 996 million cubic meters of surface water, and 82 million cubic meters of ground water. The utilization factor is averagely 59.9%, which purports to be a relatively high level. The water resources survey in 1983 found that the county population of 1.1256 million including the population in Yuecheng District had 958 cubic meters of water per person, apparently lower than 2,630 cubic meters at the national average, 2,380 cubic meters of the provincial average and 1,460 cubic meters of Shaoxing Municipality average.

Fauna and Flora
According to Shaoxing County Annals 1998, according to a survey based on reports and researches by science research institutes, medical and sanitary departments and schools, there were 1,521 types of major wild fauna and flora, including 187 families of animals in 8 phyla and 59 species of plants in 9 phyla.
In the living kingdoms, 24 species are under the state protection. The five species of plants under the second grade protection are the tulip tree, the eucommia, the gingko tree, the golden larch and the cinnamomum pedunculatum. The one species under the third grade protection is Magnolia officinalis subsp biloba. One species of animals under the first grade state protection is the tiger while 17 species of animals under the second grade state protection are the pangolin, the otter, the jackal, the silver pheasant, the little curlew, the scops owl, the oriental salamander, the tiger frog and five species of eagles and two species of hawks. The seven species of animals under the provincial protection are the Taiwan beauty snake, the cobra, the long-noded pit viper, the Asian Paradise-flycatcher, the Hoopoe, and the cuckoo, and the tufted deer.

Mineral resources
Mineral resources abound in Shaoxing County. Since 1958 when the first mineral survey was carried out, 85 mineral deposits of 32 kinds of minerals have been found. The endogenous mineral deposits in the county are iron, copper and gold, etc. For this reason, Shaoxing County is one of the producing areas of important raw materials for metallic industries and the chemical industry. The exogenous mineral deposits are peat coal, stone coal and phosphor. There is natural gas in the layer of the puaternary system in the northern Shaoxing.