Wen'an County 文安县

Setting and landscape

Wen'an is a river-built plain on a relatively low part of the North China Plain; its highest point, 7.8 metres above sea level, is at Dali (大李村) in the west, and its lowest, 2.1 metres, at Mawuying (马武营村). The east and north are shaped like the bottom of a pot, so floodwater from the Daqing, Ziya (子牙河), Guyang (古洋河) and Zhulong (潴龙河) rivers once had no outlet and formed the closed depression. The county government describes the Wen'an Depression as the flood-detention area with the widest flooded area and largest storage in the Hai River basin. The Zhaowang New River (赵王新河) links Baiyangdian (白洋淀) lake upstream with Tianjin, and the Daqing River separates the county from Bazhou (霸州) to the north.

History and people

The county was set up in the early Western Han and named for the ideal of 'honouring letters and rites, governing in peace'. The Tang poet Wang Zhihuan (王之涣) served as its sheriff. Natives include Dong Haichuan (董海川), founder of Baguazhang (八卦掌) boxing, and Zhu Daguan (朱大官), who founded the Zhu school of Xihe drum-song (西河大鼓); both arts are among the five national intangible-heritage items the county government lists. Another is the Zuogezhuang pole troupe (左各庄杆会), listed in 2008, whose performers, unlike other pole troupes, mainly use movable poles and can put on a show with a tree trunk almost anywhere.

What to see

Wen'an's traditional Eight Views point to several sites. A Tang stele stands 1.5 kilometres northwest of the county town at Xianggongzhuang (相公庄村), set up by Zhang Zhongwu for his ancestor Zhang Renxian. Wen'an Pool (文安潭), 8 kilometres north-northwest of the town, is a scour hole left by an old river breach, now only a few hundred square metres. The willow-lined south dike of the Daqing River was begun as a 150-li embankment by magistrate Shi Tianyou in 1571. At Suqiao (苏桥镇) a bridge and a shrine were once built for the Song-dynasty figure Su Xun (苏洵), who was appointed the county's registrar but never actually took up the post. Inside the depression, the Wen'an Luneng eco-tourism resort, a provincial-level resort, is built around a lake.

Highlights

• Wen'an Depression 文安洼: Flood-storage basin covering four-fifths of the county.
• Zuogezhuang pole troupe 左各庄杆会: Pole performance that can use a tree trunk almost anywhere, national intangible heritage since 2008.
• Tang stele at Xianggongzhuang 唐碑: Tang-era stele 1.5 km northwest of the county town, one of Wen'an's old Eight Views.