YIHSIEN, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE of. — In the northwestern part of the province of Hopeh (northern China).
It was erected as a mission sui iuris on 25 May 1929 from three civil subprefectures Paoting (v.) and one district (Sanpuò) Pechino (v.), and was entrusted to the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Stigmata of N. S. G. C., whose religious had been present there since 1927. On 9 Dec. 1935 it was raised to an apostolic prefecture. It has an area of approximately 7,900 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of approximately 500,000 inhabitants, there were 6,300 Catholics; 16 priests, including 6 Chinese; 2 major seminarians and 18 minor seminarians; 1 lay brother; and 39 sisters, of whom only 3 were foreigners. Its institutions included 1 hospital, 2 orphanages, 3 medical dispensaries, and 14 schools.
The evangelization of the territory of Y. began in the first decades of the last century through the work of the missionaries of Pechino; the field still appeared particularly difficult a century later. Of the 2,472 Christians entrusted to the Stimmatini in 1927, the descendants of the first converts formed a considerable group of approximately 500 faithful in the subprefecture of Kwangchang and a smaller one of approximately 150 in that of Laishui; all the others were neophytes, distributed among 18 small centers.