Ningcheng County 宁城县

Setting and landscape

The county lies where the Inner Mongolian plateau gives way to the Songliao plain, and where the southern tip of the Greater Khingan (大兴安岭) meets the Yanshan (燕山). The Qilaotu Mountains (七老图山) stand along the west and the Nulu'erhu Mountains (努鲁尔虎山) run from southwest to northeast, while the Laoha River (老哈河) flows northeast. The land is highest in the west, at 1,890.9 metres on Cuiyun Peak (翠云峰), and falls to 459 metres; the county describes it as five parts mountain, four parts hill and one part river plain.

History

The Liao Middle Capital, Dading (中京大定府), stood at today's Tiejiangying in Daming (大明镇). The county government describes a square city with three concentric walls: Han, Hui and Jurchen commoners in the outer city, Khitan commoners and minor officials in the inner city, and the Khitan nobility in the imperial city. The Jin made it a secondary capital in 1153. The county government attributes its destruction to a fire set during Zhu Di's (朱棣) Jingnan campaign (靖难之役); because the city was destroyed under the Ming, the site is called "Daming" (Great Ming) city. Ningcheng became a county in 1932 and joined Inner Mongolia in 1956.

What to see

Three brick pagodas, two lines of wall and a reviewing platform survive at the Middle Capital. The best known, the Damingta (大明塔), an octagonal solid brick pagoda with thirteen tiers of eaves, has been a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level since 1961; the county government describes it as the largest surviving Liao pagoda in China. Falun Temple (法轮寺) in Dachengzi (大城子镇), the family temple of the Harqin Middle Banner princes, was built from 1745 to 1803 on the ruins of an older temple, its buildings rising along one south-north axis.

Heilihe (黑里河) became a national nature reserve in 2003 to protect natural Chinese pine forest; the Kangxi Emperor hunted there, and an inscription by the Qianlong Emperor survives on a cliff. The Reshui (热水) hot spring reaches 104°C at its central well; Liao emperors bathed there and the Kangxi Emperor's bathing well is marked by a pavilion. Hulu Valley (葫芦峪), in the Qilaotu Mountains, takes its name from peaks ringed like a gourd. At Daohugou (道虎沟), Chinese Wikipedia notes a Middle Jurassic fossil bed about 165 million years old.

Highlights

• Damingta 大明塔: Thirteen-eave Liao brick pagoda at the Middle Capital; national protected site since 1961.
• Liao Middle Capital site 辽中京遗址: Ruins of the Liao capital Dading, with three pagodas and two walls surviving.
• Falun Temple 法轮寺: Harqin Middle Banner princes' temple built 1745-1803.
• Heilihe National Nature Reserve 黑里河自然保护区: Natural Chinese pine forest; national reserve since 2003.
• Reshui hot spring 热水温泉: Spring reaching 104°C, bathed in by Liao emperors and the Kangxi Emperor.