Ningchang Ancient Town 宁厂古镇

About Ningchang Ancient Town

The settlement's name comes from its salt administration: in the Three Kingdoms period Liu Bei abolished the old Wu County and set up Beijing County, whose name referred to the salt wells, and in the Song dynasty a supervisory office called Daning Jian was placed over the Daning salt field, giving the settlement its name of Daning Chang, later shortened to Ningchang. Salt-making here is dated from 316 BCE; by the thirty-seventh year of the Qing Qianlong reign (1772) the town had 336 salt stoves, its period of greatest production, and around the founding of the People's Republic the salt plant still had 99 stoves. The old salt-field ruins today retain 68 stove sites, 15 of them well preserved, with salt-production building floor space of nearly 30,000 square metres. The town's salt industry fully ceased production in 1992, after which residents gradually moved away.

The town covers 13.5 hectares in a deep gorge at the meeting of the Houxi and Daning rivers, with old buildings and dwellings, including diaoyuolou stilt houses on angled wooden supports and buildings spanning the street, running 3.5 kilometres along the Houxi River in what is known as the 'seven-and-a-half-li side street'. On Baoyuan Mountain north of the town stands the Longjun (Dragon Lord) Temple, first built in the Han dynasty with its present structure a Qing-dynasty timber building; a spring flowing from an opening in one of its walls is the Bailu salt spring, and the spring's basin, dragon-head outlet and brine-distribution stone plate were built in 991 CE by Lei Yue of the Daning supervisory office. East of the town stand the Green Lion White Elephant rocks and the Eighteen Arhats rock formations, the site of a White Lotus rebel base; on the hillside south of the town stands Nuwang Zhai, where the Ming-Qing transition general He Zhen camped for 18 years resisting the Qing; and west of the town stands the pyramid-shaped Erxian Shan, with Taohua Zhai at its summit, the site of the Zhengde-era salt-worker uprising led by Yan Benshu and Liao Hui. Tang-dynasty Du Fu, Song-dynasty Li Hong, Su Shi and Wang Shipeng, and Ming-dynasty Luo Hongxian all left poems here, including Du Fu's poem The Salt Well, describing the traditional salt-making process. The town was listed as a national historic and cultural town in 2010, and the Daning Salt Plant Ruins were approved by the State Council as part of the eighth group of national key cultural relics protection units.

What to look for

• The Bailu salt spring on Baoyuan Mountain, its basin, dragon-head outlet and brine-distribution stone plate dated to 991 CE, next to the Han-founded, Qing-rebuilt Longjun Temple.
• The old salt-field ruins, with 68 surviving stove sites, 15 of them well preserved, and nearly 30,000 square metres of former salt-production building floor space.
• The diaoyuolou stilt houses and street-spanning buildings of the seven-and-a-half-li side street along the Houxi River.
• The Green Lion White Elephant rocks and the Eighteen Arhats rock formations east of the town, the site of a White Lotus rebel base.
• Nuwang Zhai on the hillside south of the town and Taohua Zhai on the pyramid-shaped Erxian Shan to the west, tied respectively to a Ming-Qing transition resistance leader and a Ming salt-worker uprising.

Location & getting there

Getting to Ningchang Ancient Town

Identify the main visitor approach and any separately managed houses, museums or performances. Ask before entering residential spaces or photographing residents.

• Search for 宁厂古镇 with 重庆市 and 巫溪县.