Helan Mountain Grand Canyon Visitor Area 贺兰山大峡谷正规开放区

About Helan Mountain Grand Canyon Visitor Area

Shitanjing was established as a mining area in 1958 and was once one of China's largest coking-coal bases, with tens of thousands of workers and staff at its height; as the coal ran down, most of the population moved away. In May 2017 Ningxia began what it calls a Helan Mountain ecological defence campaign, and every coal mine, non-coal mine and coal-washing or coal-storage plant inside the Helan Mountain nature reserve was shut down, with integrated protection and restoration still under way when Xinhua reported on it in 2025.

Dawukou District then built the Shitanjing Industrial Culture and Tourism Film Town, and it has repeatedly held a "Voices of Industry" music festival, an industrial-culture photography competition and the Helan Mountain (Shitanjing) Grand Canyon off-road vehicle rally. Xinhua recorded that more than 30 film and television productions had shot at Shitanjing since 2021, that the site became a film and television production practice base of the Beijing Film Academy in 2024, and that Shitanjing received 184,000 visitors in 2024. A People's Daily Online travel feature lists the same rally among the events held there and records that the Beiwudang eco-tourism area in the district, formed of the Beiwudang temple and forest park and the Beiwudang geological park, is a national 4A-grade scenic area.

What the sources do not supply is a description of the canyon itself. Neither page gives its extent, its rock forms or any route through it, and neither says which part of it may be entered. The catalogue suffix 正规开放区 reads as an editorial label rather than a designation either source prints.

What to look for

• The surviving industrial fabric of the Shitanjing film town, including red-brick walls, faded slogans, rusted railings and old window frames that Xinhua describes as taking a visitor back to the last century.
• The former Shitanjing mining bureau television station, named by Xinhua as a location used by many productions, from the police station in 《风中的火焰》 to the power-supply office in 《山海情》.
• The Dawukou coal-washing plant, whose old buildings the People's Daily Online feature says have been converted into an industrial-heritage park with activity, memory, science-popularisation and water-play zones.
• The Beiwudang eco-tourism area in the same district, a national 4A-grade scenic area formed of the Beiwudang temple and forest park and the Beiwudang geological park.

Location & getting there

Getting to Helan Mountain Grand Canyon Visitor Area

Check weather, trail access and the last return service. A mountain or forest area is not one entrance, and a map’s central pin may be far from the trailhead.

• Search for 贺兰山大峡谷正规开放区 with 石嘴山市 and 大武口区.