YOCHOW, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE of. - In the north-eastern part of the province of Hunan (central China).
It was erected on 7 May 1931 from 4 civil Changteh (v.) and entrusted, like the mother mission, to the Hermits of St Augustine, of the province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in the Philippines. It has an area of approximately 12,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of approximately 3,500,000 inhabitants, there were 9,252 Catholics and 250 catechumens; 8 priests, including 1 Chinese; 1 major seminarian and 13 minor seminarians; 10 sisters, including 7 natives. Its institutions included 1 hospital, 2 medical dispensaries, 1 orphanage, and 2 schools.
In 1879, when the Hermits arrived in the region of northern Hunan, from which the missions of Yuanling, Lichow, and Y. were subsequently detached, they found only 45 Christians there. During the first twenty years the expansion of the Gospel was hindered and consequently very limited, but from 1901 it made notable progress, and even greater progress from 1911. In 1931 the said region, already reduced by the territory that formed Yuanling, numbered 17,133 faithful and 11,000 catechumens, of whom 6,501 and 2,309 respectively passed to Y.