Tongling city. Tongling is a prefecture-level city in Anhui Province, located in the east of China. Tongling, named after copper, is known as "the ancient copper capital of China and the contemporary copper base". The history of copper mining and smelting began in Shang and Zhou Dynasties and flourished in Han and Tang Dynasties. It has a history of more than 3,500 years. The first pot of copper water and the first copper ingot in New China came from Tongling City.