Xichuan County 淅川县

Setting and landscape

Mountains close the county in on the north, west and south, giving a horseshoe-shaped terrain that rises in the north-west and tilts to the south-east, between 120 and 1,086 metres above sea level. The Dan River (丹江), a direct tributary of the Han (汉江), crosses the whole county from north-west to south-east, fed by the Laoguan (老鹳河), Qi (淇河) and Tao (滔河) rivers. At its normal level of 170 metres the reservoir covers 506.18 square kilometres; the county government calls it Asia's largest man-made freshwater lake.

History

The county government places Danyang (丹阳), the first capital of the state of Chu (楚), within Xichuan, now under the reservoir. In 312 BC the Chu army was routed by Qin along the Dan and Xi (淅水) rivers inside today's county, after which the whole area passed to Qin. After Liu Tong (刘通) led tens of thousands of displaced migrants in revolt here in 1465, the Ming court split Xichuan off from Neixiang (内乡) as its own county in 1470.

Filling the reservoir in August 1960 drowned 548,400 mu of land, including the Shunyang (顺阳川), Danyang (丹阳川) and Banqiao (板桥川) plains, the county's richest farmland, and the seat moved to Shangji (上集), 40 kilometres from the old town. In 1972 Taocha village (陶岔村), where the middle-route canal begins, passed to Xichuan from Deng County (邓县).

What to see

Jingziguan (荆紫关), 75 kilometres from the county seat at the three-province junction, keeps a Qing street about five li long whose more than 700 Qing buildings largely keep their original form; it became a national key cultural relic in 2001. Along it stand the Pinglang Palace (平浪宫), paid for by boat households on the old Dan River route, and the Shanxi-Shaanxi Guild Hall (山陕会馆), built by merchants in 1833. At Bailang Street (白浪街), shared by the three provinces, a friendship stele pavilion was built jointly by their people in 1987; a three-sided stone below it lets one step land in all three.

Xiangyan Temple (香严寺), in the Baiya Mountains (白崖山) of Cangfang town (仓房镇), was founded in the Tang dynasty. Its lower monastery was lost to the reservoir; the surviving upper temple, a national key cultural relic since 2006, has more than 140 rooms, mostly Ming and Qing buildings. Danjiang Daguanyuan (丹江大观苑), a national 4A scenic area of small islands on the reservoir's north shore, includes a memorial hall to the water transfer project.

Highlights

• Jingziguan 荆紫关: Qing street of more than 700 buildings at the Henan-Hubei-Shaanxi junction; national key cultural relic since 2001.
• Xiangyan Temple 香严寺: Tang-founded temple in the Baiya Mountains; its upper monastery survives, a national key cultural relic since 2006.
• Danjiang Daguanyuan 丹江大观苑: National 4A scenic area of islands on the north shore of the Danjiangkou Reservoir.
• Danjiangkou Reservoir 丹江口水库: Core water source of the middle route of the South-North Water Transfer Project.