Heze (simplified Chinese: 菏泽; traditional Chinese: 菏澤; pinyin: Hézé) is a prefecture-level city in southwestern Shandong province, People's Republic of China. It is home to 8,287,693 inhabitants of whom 1,346,717 live in the built-up (or metro) area made up of Mudan urban district. The westernmost prefecture-level city in Shandong, it borders Jining to the east and the provinces of Henan and Anhui to the west and south respectively. The old name of Heze was Caozhou (曹州; Cáozhōu) and now a part of the city bears this name.