Nine Rapids and Eighteen Shoals Scenic Area 九泷十八滩开放游览区

About Nine Rapids and Eighteen Shoals Scenic Area

The designated area covers 90 square kilometres, of which 30 square kilometres was set aside as a strict protection zone. The name counts the river's own features: nine long, the narrow chutes where the current accelerates, and eighteen tan, the shoals and rapids between them. Flow through the section generally runs at about 100 cubic metres per second and the river falls some 65 metres over the course, with mountains, rock outcrops and forest on both banks. The scenic area abuts Jinjiling, another provincial scenic area, at its northern end, and Lechang's Gufoyan at its southern end. A shrine on the upper river, recorded in the provincial notice as Hanqian Ci, is more than a thousand years old.

This was a working waterway long before it was a scenic one. Lechang sits on the Hunan border at the northern edge of Guangdong, and the Wu River route, alongside the Xijing and Leyi old roads, carried Guangdong salt and other goods north and south through the Nanling passes. The town itself dates from a county founded in 508 and renamed Lechang in 598 after two local hills. In 1987 the river stretch became the place where rafting tourism in the province began, and in September 1990 the provincial tourism bureau listed it among Guangdong's four flagship tourism products. The catalogue's label 'open touring area' is not an official designation, and Jiulong Shibatan does not appear on Lechang's current list of graded A-level scenic areas, so how much of the river is arranged for visitors should be checked locally rather than assumed.

What to look for

• The sequence of nine chutes and eighteen shoals that gives the river stretch its name
• The steep banks of mountain, rock and forest flanking the Wu River between Pingshi and Lecheng
• Hanqian Ci, the shrine on the upper river recorded as being over a thousand years old
• The adjoining provincial scenic area of Jinjiling at the northern end of the designated stretch
• The river's role as the old Wu River trade route through the Nanling between Guangdong and Hunan

Location & getting there

Getting to Nine Rapids and Eighteen Shoals Scenic Area

Confirm the visitor entrance and which boat or walking routes operate on your date. Rainfall, water levels and weather can change access.

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