Yunshe Village 云舍村

About Yunshe Village

The village stands about 7 kilometres from the Jiangkou county town and 23 kilometres from the south gate of Fanjingshan, on a territory of 6.15 square kilometres. It sits in mountain river-valley karst terrain in a subtropical monsoon humid climate, with its houses strung out along the river and the valley: Qinyanpo slope to the east, Bayuanpo slope to the west, the Shenlongtan pool within the village and the Taiping river beyond it, and two watercourses running through the settlement. Flagstone lanes connect the whole village. The county government records a local belief that the Shenlongtan pool forecasts the weather by the rise and fall of its water, and notes that traditional handmade papermaking, an intangible cultural heritage item, is still carried on here.

The village is six or seven hundred years old. The county's account traces its founding families from Shaanxi to Jiangxi and then to Jingzhou in Hunan more than a thousand years ago, from there to Shengxisi, and then, after the brothers divided the household, to the site of present-day Yunshe. Twentieth-century history left its mark too: from November to December 1950 People's Liberation Army units of the East Sichuan military region conducted bandit-suppression operations across the Fanjingshan area of Jiangkou County, Yunshe was one of the battlefields, and operations in the Yunshe area ended on 15 December.

Yunshe was placed on the first national list of Chinese Traditional Villages in December 2012 by the ministries of housing and urban-rural development, culture and finance. On 28 July 2019 it was added to the first national list of key rural tourism villages by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the National Development and Reform Commission, and on 25 December that year to the first national forest village list by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration. The population is mainly Tujia; the digital museum of Chinese traditional villages recorded 531 registered households and 2,328 residents in May 2020. Mean annual temperature is 16.2 degrees Celsius, with mean annual rainfall of 1,369.6 millimetres and a frost-free period of 288 days.

What to look for

• The Shenlongtan pool inside the village, which the county government records as forecasting the weather by the rise and fall of its water
• The flagstone lanes that link the whole village
• The traditional handmade papermaking carried on here as an intangible cultural heritage item
• The setting between Qinyanpo slope to the east and Bayuanpo slope to the west, with two watercourses running through the village to the Taiping river
• The river-valley karst terrain the village is built into

Location & getting there

Getting to Yunshe Village

Identify the main visitor approach and any separately managed houses, museums or performances. Ask before entering residential spaces or photographing residents.

• Search for 云舍村 with 铜仁市 and 江口县.