Wulingyuan District 武陵源区

Setting and landscape

The scenic area counts 3,103 stone peaks standing between 500 and 1,100 m above sea level, from a few tens of metres to 400 m tall. They are cut from Devonian quartz sandstone, 75 to 95 percent quartz, in beds over 520 m thick with dense vertical joints; running water, collapse and weathering shaped the landform. Forest covers 88 percent of the area; the Wuling pine grows only here, alongside dove trees and yews, and the Chinese giant salamander lives here.

History

Zhangjiajie, Suoxiyu (索溪峪) and Tianzi Mountain (天子山) once belonged to three counties. Zhangjiajie became China's first national forest park in 1982, and boundary disputes among the three led Hunan to merge them. Before 1984 "Wulingyuan" was a literary name for the Peach Blossom Spring (桃花源) of poems by Wang Wei and Li Bai; the painter Huang Yongyu (黄永玉) proposed it in the winter of 1984. The State Council approved the district on 18 May 1988 from two townships and a forest farm of Dayong (大庸), Suoxiyu town of Cili (慈利) and Tianzishan town of Sangzhi (桑植). UNESCO inscribed the scenic area as a natural World Heritage site in December 1992; it became a Global Geopark in 2004 and a 5A scenic area in 2007.

Tujia people make up more than 80 percent of the scenic area's minorities. A 2000 district survey found that only 324 people in six villages could still speak or understand some of the Tujia language.

What to see

The World Heritage area joins Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Suoxiyu, Tianzi Mountain and Yangjiajie. Suoxiyu, a Tujia name meaning "misty mountain village", has more than 2,000 peaks and the Ten-Li Gallery (十里画廊). Tianzi Mountain, in the north, rises to 1,262.5 m and is named after the Tujia leader Xiang Dakun (向大坤), who proclaimed himself emperor at the end of the Southern Song. Yangjiajie, found in 1992, takes its name from the Yang family generals who, by legend, fought him and whose descendants settled here.

Huanglong Cave (黄龙洞) is a karst cave 7.5 km long with two dry and two water levels, visited on foot and by boat on its underground river; its best-known feature is a 20 m stalactite pillar called Dinghai Shenzhen (定海神针). The district government lists smaller relics such as the Ming-built Longfeng Nunnery (龙凤庵) and the Chaotian Temple (朝天观), where only stone walls and a gate survive.

Highlights

• Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area 武陵源风景名胜区: World Heritage site since 1992, with 3,103 quartz-sandstone peaks.
• Huanglong Cave 黄龙洞: 7.5 km karst cave with an underground river and a 20 m stalactite pillar.
• Tianzi Mountain 天子山: Northern scenic area rising to 1,262.5 m, named after a self-proclaimed Tujia emperor.
• Suoxiyu 索溪峪: More than 2,000 peaks and the Ten-Li Gallery; the name is Tujia for a misty mountain village.