Zhuanglang County 庄浪县

Setting and landscape

The land rises from south-west to north-east. The Liupan range forms the county's eastern edge and the boundary with Jingyuan (泾源) and Huating (华亭), running for about 100 km, and every other hill in the county is an offshoot of it. The highest point is Taomu Mountain (桃木山) at 2,857 m; the lowest, at 1,405 m, lies on the lower Hulu River (葫芦河). According to the county government, loess hills and gullies make up 63.3 per cent of the land, bare bedrock mountains 32 per cent and flat valley floors only 4.7 per cent, cut into 402 ridges and 2,500 gullies.

Most people farm, growing wheat and potatoes on terraced hills.

History

The oldest surviving local place name is Shuiluo (水洛). It first appears in 411, when the Western Qin attacked a Later Qin governor at Shuiluo city, and in 530 the rebel leader Wang Qingyun (王庆云) proclaimed himself emperor there. Shuiluo is still the name of the county seat. Under the Western Han, Jiequan County (街泉县), abolished in 74, had its seat at today's Handian (韩店), in the south-east of the county.

The name Zhuanglang dates from the Mongol conquest. In 1227 Genghis Khan attacked the Jingning, Longde and Zhuanglang area and spent the summer in the Liupan Mountains shortly before his death, and at about that time a Zhuanglang circuit was set up with its seat at Nanhu (南湖). It became a prefecture in 1304 and was reduced to a county in 1375. The county was merged into Longde in 1778, restored in 1913, merged into Jingning in 1958 and restored again in 1961.

What to see

Yunya Temple (云崖寺) is the centrepiece of a protected forest park in the far east of the county, about 40 km from the county town. In the county town itself, a monument records the "Zhuanglang Spirit" with which the county's farmers terraced all available hillside, work for which they were praised in the 1980s.

Highlights

• Yunya Temple 云崖寺: Temple in a protected forest park in the far east of the county, about 40 km from the county town.
• Shuiluo 水洛: County seat whose name is first recorded in 411, the oldest surviving place name in the county.
• Taomu Mountain 桃木山: Highest point of the county at 2,857 m, on the Liupan range.