Dehua County 德化县

Setting and landscape

The county covers 2,232 square kilometres and borders Yongtai (永泰县) and Xianyou (仙游县) to the east, Yongchun (永春县) to the south, Datian (大田县) to the west and Youxi (尤溪县) to the north. The county government counts 258 peaks above 1,000 metres; mountain land makes up 81.6 percent of the area, and the Daiyun range is described as Fujian's second-largest. Rainfall averages about 1,769 millimetres a year, and the average temperature is 19.5°C.

History

Between 785 and 795 Guide (归德场), a sub-county unit split from Yongtai County, was set up on the site of the present county town, and in 933 it became Dehua County, the name meaning 'to transform the people by virtue'. From the Song to the Ming it belonged to Quanzhou; in 1734 it passed to Yongchun department (永春州), and it has been part of Quanzhou city since the city was formed in 1985. Surveys between 1954 and 1988 found 229 old kiln sites from the Song to the Republic, spread over 61 villages. The Qudougong Dehua kiln site (屈斗宫德化窑址), covering Song-to-Ming kilns in Xunzhong (浔中), Sanban (三班) and Gaide (盖德), became a national key protected site in 1988.

Porcelain and crafts

The Ming sculptor He Chaozong (何朝宗, about 1540–1628) developed a school of porcelain figure carving drawing on clay, wood and stone Buddhist sculpture; his works are held in museums in Britain, the United States, Japan and Germany. A hill that supplied his kaolin, once called Bainiqi (白泥崎, 'white clay slope'), is now named Guanyinqi (观音岐) after his porcelain Guanyin figures. The county government describes Dehua wares as 'white as snow, thin as paper, bright as a mirror and ringing like a chime stone', and in 1915 Su Xuejin's (苏学金) porcelain plum blossom won a gold medal at the Panama–Pacific exposition.

What to see

Jiuxian Mountain (九仙山) holds the Lingjiu temple (灵鹫岩), founded in the Tang Kaiyuan era and rebuilt in 1988–1990, about 50 cliff inscriptions, the datable ones from the Yuan, Ming and Qing, and a stone Maitreya 2.7 metres tall carved before 716 by the monk Zou Wubi (邹无比) in the Maitreya Cave. The county also lists a Yuan-dynasty stone Guanyin, 2 metres high, beside the path from Guangqin temple (广钦寺) to Shitou Mountain (狮头山); a pavilion was built over it in 2003.

Highlights

• Qudougong Dehua kiln site 屈斗宫德化窑址: Song-to-Ming kiln sites listed as a national key protected site in 1988.
• Jiuxian Mountain 九仙山: Lingjiu temple, about 50 cliff inscriptions and a Tang stone Maitreya 2.7 m tall.
• Guanyinqi 观音岐: Kaolin hill renamed after He Chaozong's porcelain Guanyin figures.
• Dehua porcelain 德化瓷: White wares and porcelain figures in the tradition of the Ming sculptor He Chaozong.