Heze is a prefecture-level city in southwestern Shandong, China. It is home to 8,287,693 inhabitants, of whom 1,346,717 live in the built-up (or metro) area comprising Mudan 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 (; Cáozhou) and now a part of the city bears this name. The first character in the city's name is sometimes incorrectly written as "" instead.