Danlu Mountain 丹炉山

About Danlu Mountain

The Nandan county culture, radio, television, sport and tourism bureau places the scenic area 18 kilometres from the seat of the Wu'ai town government and describes the old alchemy site on the hill as a comparatively well-preserved Ming-dynasty example among those found in China. The same profile lists flower-lantern opera, Daoist practice and the culture of the native chieftain (tusi) houses among the long-established traditions of the area, and describes the hill as wooded and never short of water. A Nandan county agriculture bureau item carried by the Guangxi Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs puts the site far higher, calling it the largest in scale, the most completely preserved, and the one with the most inscribed stele text of any Ming alchemy site so far found in the country. The two government descriptions disagree about how exceptional the remains are, and neither grading is treated here as settled.

The wider area has been packaged as the Danlushan forest ecology and culture tourism demonstration zone, whose core is Danlu hamlet; in 2022 the autonomous region's agriculture department named it to that year's list of Guangxi leisure-agriculture and rural-tourism demonstration sites. The county bureau records that the scenic area entered trial operation on 8 February 2018 and that the ruins of the Danlu old town are among the components it has run since. Alongside the alchemy remains, the agriculture department's item names the frog festival, flower-lantern culture, alchemical (dandao) culture and tusi culture as local traditions of long standing.

What to look for

• The Ming-dynasty alchemy site on the hill, which the county culture and tourism bureau calls a comparatively well-preserved example of its kind in China
• The ruins of the Danlu old town, listed by the county bureau among the components the scenic area operates
• The carved stone inscriptions, which the autonomous region's agriculture department describes as the most extensive inscribed record at any Ming alchemy site so far found in China
• The wooded hillside and its unfailing water, noted in the county bureau's own description of the mountain

Location & getting there

Getting to Danlu Mountain

Check which interiors and courtyards are accessible. Active places of worship and protected monuments may have different visitor rules.

• Search for 丹炉山 with 河池市 and 南丹县.