Shayang County 沙洋县

History

Historical records name Shayang as the birthplace of Quan County (权县), described as the first county-level government set up in Chinese history. Shayang was widely known as "Little Hankou" (小汉口). Its port trade thrived on busy water transport, merchants from north and south settled here, and they built the old "Eight Great Streets" (八大街), all destroyed in the fighting of the Japanese invasion. Until the 1960s Shayang was counted among eight major towns alongside Hankou (汉口), Shashi (沙市) and Yichang (宜昌).

In 1960 Shayang was separated from Jiangling County (江陵县) as a city; it became a town under Jingmen County (荆门县) in 1961, a district in 1985 and a county in 1998. A Jingmen culture and tourism review published by the Hubei Department of Culture and Tourism reports that finds at the Chenghe site (城河遗址) in Shayang were selected as one of China's top ten new archaeological discoveries.

What to see

Xinhua describes Shayang, called "China's home of rapeseed oil" (中国菜籽油之乡), as the largest high-quality rapeseed-growing area in Hubei. At the farming culture park in Zhangchi village (张池村), Zengji town (曾集镇), yellow, white, pink and orange rapeseed flowers are woven into patterns; the park was the main venue of the 2025 Hubei Rapeseed Flower Festival and has been the main venue of rapeseed-flower tourism events 16 times. The county has also built a cherry-blossom area at Leidu village (雷都村), the Panji Lake National Wetland Park (潘集湖国家湿地公园) and what Xinhua calls China's first rapeseed museum.

Food and local products

A farm-restaurant owner at Zhangchi told Xinhua that her main ingredients are air-dried chicken, fish cake and sausages prepared before the New Year, with seasonal vegetables from her own garden. Xinhua says Shayang has become "China's home of air-dried chicken" (中国风干鸡之乡), and the county government promotes Shayang air-dried chicken (沙洋风干鸡) as a signature local food and presents its making as intangible cultural heritage. At one family farm, rapeseed shoots (油菜薹) are picked from mid-December to late March, then vacuum-packed and quick-frozen or pickled for more than 100 days. Rapeseed-flower honey is another local product.

Getting oriented

National Highways 234 and 348 run through the county, and the Jianghan Canal (江汉运河), which links the Yangtze and the Han, crosses its territory.