Datang, Zhuji

By the early 1980s, the township had a population of 1,000. Designated as an industrial development zone, it quickly developed as a hosiery industry centre, becoming known as Sock City. By 2008, the town was producing eight billion pairs of socks each year,^[1] a third of the world's sock production, effectively creating two pairs of socks for every person on the planet for the year 2011.^[2] As a result, the population boomed to 60,000, with over 100,000 employed in the area in the industry via other local towns and villages.^[1]