China's first and oldest female tractor driver Liang Jun, whose image features on Renminbi currency notes, has died.
Liang was 90.
She died of illness on Tuesday in Harbin, the capital of northeastern province Heilongjiang, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Liang was the first female tractor driver of New China. Her image was featured on the 1 yuan note of the third set of the Chinese currency Renminbi.
Liang was born in an impoverished family in Heilongjiang's Mingshui County in 1930. At the age of 17, she was admitted to a teachers college.
In 1948, Liang became the only female student of a training class for tractor drivers.
After graduation, she joined a national campaign to develop the "great northern wilderness".
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Liang joined the Communist Party of China in October 1949, when Chairman Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People's Republic of China.
In June 1950, authorities set up the country's first female tractor team named in her honour.
Liang dedicated her entire life to agriculture and machinery.
Textbooks included her stories, and filmmakers shot movies on her.
In 1962, her image was printed on the one-yuan note of the renminbi, which featured a smiling Liang holding a steering wheel with her hair flowing in the wind.
Liang was among the first group of China's national model workers and has been hailed as one of the most influential model workers in China since 1949.
She was elected national lawmaker four times.
Liang retired in 1990 from the position of chief engineer of the Harbin Municipal Bureau of Agricultural Machines.
"The tractor driver on the one-yuan note was created based on my image. It's a symbol of the women of new China," she had said.
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