Suiyang County 绥阳县

Setting and landscape

The county covers 2,566 square kilometres between Meitan (湄潭) to the east, Tongzi (桐梓) to the west, urban Zunyi to the south and Zheng'an (正安) to the north. Forest covers about 70 percent; the mean temperature is 15.1°C. It has four farming flats of over 10,000 mu and is known as the "granary of northern Guizhou".

History

Suiyang became a county in 611 under the Sui. When the Tang created Bozhou (播州) in 639, its seat lay in present-day Suiyang, and so did the seat of the Zunyi County named in 642. The Ming re-established Suiyang County in 1601 on its Song-dynasty land, and it moved from Sichuan to Guizhou with Zunyi in 1727. Two Southern Song natives, the brothers Ran Jin (冉琎) and Ran Pu (冉璞), built the Diaoyu Fortress (钓鱼城) at Hechuan (合川) against the Mongols. Sites of 1960s Third Front military industry, numbered 531, 535 and 409, remain.

What to see

Shuanghe Cave, in Wenquan town (温泉镇), is a four-level system formed in dolomite, with underground rivers, waterfalls, terraces, helictites and gypsum flowers. Explorers have mapped 439.7 km of passages with 115 connected entrances and a depth of 912 metres, and the county lists it as the world's longest dolomite cave and largest celestine cave. More than 40 giant panda fossils and subfossils, dated from about 100,000 to a few hundred years ago, have been found inside. It became a national geopark in 2004 and entered China's UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2025.

The Kuankuoshui National Nature Reserve in the north of the county covers 26,231 hectares on the eastern slopes of the Dalou range. It is the main source of the Furong River (芙蓉江), a tributary of the Wujiang (乌江), and fifteen streams radiate from Taiyang Mountain (太阳山). The reserve protects dove trees (珙桐) and black leaf monkeys (黑叶猴) and has recorded 204 bird species.

Food and local products

Suiyang hollow noodles (绥阳空心面), locally called salt-water noodles (盐水面), are hair-thin and were a tribute item under the Ming and Qing. Refined flour is mixed with sesame oil, a little salt and a broth of pounded chicken bones, rolled into strands, strung between sticks and hung from high frames, then drawn down by hand until the strands turn hollow and left to dry. Huangyang xiaomila (黄杨小米辣) and "Suiyang bullet" (绥阳子弹头) chillies hold national agricultural geographical-indication registration. Pork stir-fried in sauce (酱爆肉), beef zha (牛肉鲝) and tuotuo pork (坨坨肉) belong to the county's "twelve flavours".

Highlights

• Shuanghe Cave 双河洞: 439.7 km of mapped dolomite cave passages; on China's UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List since 2025.
• Kuankuoshui National Nature Reserve 宽阔水国家级自然保护区: Forest reserve of 26,231 hectares in the Dalou range, home to dove trees and black leaf monkeys.
• Suiyang hollow noodles 绥阳空心面: Hand-pulled salted noodles that turn hollow as they are drawn; once a tribute item.