Yugu Terrace 郁孤台

About Yugu Terrace

Yugu Terrace (郁孤台) is a three-storey pavilion tower on Helan Hill (贺兰山) in the north-west of the old city of Ganzhou (赣州), in Zhanggong District (章贡区), Jiangxi.

Helan Hill, also called Tianluo Ridge (田螺岭), rises to 131 metres, and the terrace on it is the highest point of the old city. The Ganzhou city government explains the name as coming from the hill's dense trees and its solitary shape. When the terrace was first built is not recorded; one account credits the Tang official Li Mian (李勉) between 763 and 779, and the Qing gazetteer of Gan County (赣县志) says he looked north from it and, declaring that his heart was with the court, renamed it Wangque (望阙, 'gazing at the palace gate'). In 1147 the Southern Song prefect Zeng Zao (曾慥) built two terraces on the site, the northern one keeping the name Wangque and the southern one taking back the name Yugu.

Under the Ming it was turned into government offices in the Hongwu reign and restored in the Zhengde reign after the offices moved to the west of the city. It was rebuilt in 1700, repaired in 1830, and rebuilt again after a storm destroyed it in 1869. That Qing building was restored in 1959 and taken down in March 1982; the present tower, 17 metres tall and built of reinforced concrete made to look like timber, went up on roughly the Qing layout between June 1983 and September 1984. Ganzhou listed it as a city-level protected cultural relic on 23 December 1983, a listing that also records it as the place where the Communist Party's Ganzhou special branch committee was founded.

Many noted figures, among them Su Dongpo (苏东坡), Yue Fei (岳飞), Wen Tianxiang (文天祥) and Wang Yangming (王阳明), left verses here. The city government singles out the Southern Song poet Xin Qiji (辛弃疾): his ci poem "Pusaman: Written on the Wall at Zaokou, Jiangxi" (菩萨蛮·书江西造口壁), written while he held office in Ganzhou, made the terrace famous. The terrace gives a view over the whole of the old city. The Yugu Terrace Tourism and Leisure Street District, centred on the Yugu Terrace historic block, reaches north to the Zhang (章江) and Gong (贡江) rivers and east to Yongjin Gate (涌金门). It takes in Song-dynasty city walls, listed as a major national protected site, and the Song-era Fushou Ditch (福寿沟), and was named a national-level tourism and leisure street district in 2023.

What to look for

• The three-storey tower of 1984 on the summit of Helan Hill, the highest point of the old city
• The view over the whole of old Ganzhou from the terrace
• The terrace's link to Xin Qiji's ci poem written on the wall at Zaokou (菩萨蛮·书江西造口壁)
• Song-dynasty city walls, a major national protected site, in the surrounding street district
• Yongjin Gate (涌金门) at the eastern edge of the Yugu Terrace street district

Location & getting there

Getting to Yugu Terrace

• Search for 郁孤台 with 赣州市 and 章贡区.