Weichang Manchu and Mongol Autonomous County 围场满族蒙古族自治县

History

In the early Qing the area was Mongol pasture. In the summer of 1683 the Kangxi Emperor stayed here for the first time, and the Mulan autumn hunt (木兰秋狝) grew from that visit; three Qing emperors held the hunt here, and it also served as the place where Mongol princes came to meet the emperor. Apart from the troops who guarded the hunting park, ordinary settlers were barred.

In 1862 the Qing court began opening the hunting ground to farmers. An official post to administer grain and policing was set up in 1877, and Weichang became a county in 1913.

Setting and landscape

The county sits where the Inner Mongolian Plateau meets the mountains of northern Hebei, high in the northwest and lower in the southeast. Saihanba (塞罕坝) splits it into the flat, wind-scoured Bashang (坝上) grassland at 1,200 to 2,000 metres and the ridges and valleys below. The highest peak, Daguangdingzi Mountain (大光顶子山, 1,940 m) in Chaoyangwan (朝阳湾镇), was called the Xing'an range (兴安大岭) in Qing times. Many tributaries of the Luan (滦河) and Liao (辽河) rivers rise here.

The climate is cold: the mean annual temperature is 5.7 °C, and Yudaokou (御道口) recorded Hebei's lowest temperature, −42.9 °C, on 12 January 1957.

What to see

Saihanba Mechanised Forest Farm (塞罕坝机械林场), founded in 1962 on the southern edge of the Hunshandake (浑善达克) sandy land, is a national nature reserve planted mainly with larch, Mongolian pine, spruce and white birch. The Hebei forestry administration says late-Qing land clearance, years of war and wildfires had destroyed the original forest there by 1949, and that replanting has raised forest cover from 11.4 to 82 percent; it calls the farm the largest planted forest farm in the world. The farm received the UN "Champions of the Earth" award in 2017 and the Land for Life Award in 2021.

Hebei Mulan Weichang National Forest Park (河北木兰围场国家森林公园) was set up in the north of the county in 1993. The Yudaokou pasture area (御道口牧场管理区) inside the county has been run directly by Chengde since 2017.

Food and local products

The cold climate favours potatoes and naked oats (莜麦), and Weichang is known as China's "home of the potato"; its starchy potatoes go into vermicelli and starch rather than chips. The warmer southeastern hills produce corn, millet, apricot kernels, mushrooms and daylilies (黄花菜), while the Bashang grassland is mainly used for grazing.

Highlights

• Saihanba Mechanised Forest Farm 塞罕坝机械林场: Forest farm founded in 1962 on the old Qing hunting ground; UN Champions of the Earth award, 2017.
• Mulan Weichang 木兰围场: Qing imperial hunting ground covering the whole county, used for the autumn hunt from the Kangxi reign.
• Daguangdingzi Mountain 大光顶子山: Highest peak of the county at 1,940 m, known in the Qing as the Xing'an range.