Jinyintan Grassland 金银滩草原

About Jinyintan Grassland

The Haibei prefecture news portal gives two accounts of the grassland's name: two small flowers grow there, 金露梅 and 银露梅, and the grassland takes its name from them; or the pasture was rich and the herds fat, and people described the land as covered in gold and silver. It places the grassland by Qinghai Lake at the foot of Tongbao Mountain, records that July to September is its golden season, and describes the yellow 金露梅 and the silver-white 银露梅 standing out as they interweave, sheep like floating clouds and brown-and-black yaks grazing among the grass and wild flowers. The same page records that the Jinyintan-Atomic City scenic area is where the Haibei prefecture seat is, 100 km from Xining and 28 km from Qinghai Lake, with a total extent of about 570 square kilometres, that the Haiyan Sancheng site is the seat of the Han-dynasty Western Sea Commandery, and that Jinyintan is a settlement of Tibetan people. The provincial page records that Tibetan and Mongol people have lived on the grassland for generations.

In the summer of 1939, the provincial page records, Zheng Junli brought a film crew to the Jinyintan grassland to shoot a film called 民族万岁, with Sajie Zhuoma, the daughter of the local thousand-household head, as the shepherdess and Wang Luobin as her hired hand; on the way back to Xining after the light blow from her whip, Wang Luobin used Kazakh folk-song material he had collected earlier to compose 《在那遥远的地方》. The Wang Luobin Music Art Hall was completed on the grassland in June 2009. The same page records that the Atomic City lies on the vast grassland on the north shore of Qinghai Lake and was a well-known nuclear weapons research and production base of New China, that China's first atomic bomb and hydrogen bomb were developed there and that this is why the place is called the Atomic City, and that in July 1958 China's first nuclear weapons research, test and production base was finally sited on the Jinyintan grassland in Haiyan County. It lists Zhu Guangya, Guo Yonghuai, Wang Ganchang, Peng Huanwu, Deng Jiaxian, Yu Min, Chen Nengkuan and Cheng Kaijia among the celebrated scientists who worked there, records that China's first atomic bomb was developed on 16 October 1964 and its first hydrogen bomb test-detonated over western China on 17 June 1967, and that the 221 plant carried out 16 nuclear tests. On 15 May 1995, it records, Xinhua announced to the world that China's first nuclear weapons research and production base had been fully decommissioned, and in November 2005 the State Council named China's Atomic City a national-level patriotic education demonstration base. The Haibei page adds that in the 1950s 1,170 square kilometres of the Jinyintan area was made a secret restricted zone, that in August 1958 the first construction team entered the grassland followed by nearly ten thousand builders, and that the old plant site now stands screened by the grassland's greenery; it also records that the Qinghai Atomic City Memorial Hall reproduces the working, production and living scenes of the 221 base workers through written material, historical photographs, objects and partly reconstructed scenes.

What to look for

• The two small flowers the Haibei page names as the source of the grassland's name — the yellow 金露梅 and the silver-white 银露梅
• The Wang Luobin Music Art Hall, completed on the grassland in June 2009
• The Qinghai Atomic City Memorial Hall, which the Haibei page says reproduces the 221 base workers' working, production and living scenes
• The Haiyan Sancheng site, which the Haibei page identifies as the seat of the Han-dynasty Western Sea Commandery
• The old 221 plant site, which the Haibei page says stands screened by the grassland's greenery, and Tongbao Mountain, at whose foot the page places the grassland

Location & getting there

Getting to Jinyintan Grassland

Confirm the road and activity operator, weather and return transport. Stay on permitted routes and do not treat open land as unrestricted access.

• Search for 金银滩草原 with 海北藏族自治州 and 海晏县.