Lushan City 庐山市

Setting and landscape

Mount Lu has 171 named peaks, led by Dahanyang Peak (大汉阳峰) at 1,474 metres. It was inscribed on the World Heritage List as a cultural site in December 1996 and joined the first list of world geoparks in 2004. Guling (牯岭), a long-famous summer resort, has forest cover of 90.7 percent, and the botanist Hu Xiansu (胡先骕) founded China's first subtropical mountain botanical garden on the mountain. More than 600 villas in the styles of over 20 countries survive, and the mountain served as the Republic's "summer capital". The city's share of Poyang Lake covers 373.4 square kilometres, where more than 100,000 migratory birds spend the winter, and the Gan, Fu, Rao, Xin and Xiu rivers meet in the waters to its southeast.

History

Between 929 and 935 the Wu state of the Five Dynasties period set up a garrison town south of Mount Lu called Xingzi, "star", after a rock that floats on the water like a star, the Luoxing Dun (落星墩). Xingzi became a county in 978, and from 982 it was the seat of Nankang, whose prefecture stayed there from the Song to the Qing. On 30 May 2016 Xingzi County was abolished and Lushan City created, taking in Guling town. The city government credits Tao Yuanming (陶渊明) with founding Chinese pastoral poetry here and the monk Huiyuan (慧远) with founding the Pure Land school at Donglin Temple (东林寺). It also says Li Bai (李白) wrote "Viewing the Waterfall at Mount Lu" (望庐山瀑布) and Su Shi (苏轼) "Written on the Wall of Xilin Temple" (题西林壁) in this area.

What to see

White Deer Grotto Academy (白鹿洞书院), southeast of Wulao Peak (五老峰), is a national protected site; the city government dates it from the Tang, when Li Bo (李渤) lived here to study in the 785-805 period and kept a white deer. Zhu Xi (朱熹) later rebuilt it to teach Neo-Confucianism. Xiufeng (秀峰), on the southern foot of Mount Lu, is named after a temple founded in the Southern Tang and destroyed in the Taiping period; its cliff inscriptions, from the Tang to the Republic, have been a national protected site since 2006 and include the characters "Qingyu Gorge" (青玉峡), traditionally attributed to Mi Fu (米芾).

The local Jinxing inkstone (金星宋砚), a bluestone inkstone named by the Song emperor Huizong according to the city government, was placed on the first national intangible-heritage list.

Highlights

• Mount Lu 庐山: World Heritage cultural site since 1996 and world geopark since 2004; main peak 1,474 metres.
• White Deer Grotto Academy 白鹿洞书院: Academy southeast of Wulao Peak, dating from the Tang and rebuilt by Zhu Xi; national protected site.
• Xiufeng cliff inscriptions 秀峰摩崖: Tang to Republican inscriptions on the southern foot of Mount Lu, national protected site since 2006.
• Jinxing inkstone 金星宋砚: Bluestone inkstone on the first national intangible-heritage list.