Litong District 利通区

Setting and landscape

The land lies at an average of 1,125 metres in a temperate semi-arid climate, with about 187 millimetres of rain a year against evaporation of more than 2,000 millimetres, and some 2,928 hours of sunshine. Farming depends on the Yellow River, and Chinese Wikipedia notes that rice is its best-known crop. The district government reports soils high in selenium and calls Litong the core of the "Selenium Capital beyond the Great Wall" (塞上硒都).

History

The Litong culture, sports and tourism bureau traces the name Wuzhong to a Ming-dynasty garrison chief: military farm forts in Ningxia were named after their commanders, and "Wuzhong" was one of those names, appearing around 1527 or a little earlier. The ground is much older. In 2003 a construction site in Jinxing village (金星村) turned up the epitaph of a Lady Lü (吕氏夫人), buried in 830 on the "eastern plain of Huile County", which the bureau reads as proof that the Tang city of Lingzhou (灵州) stood here. In the early Ming, Yellow River floods broke the walls of Lingzhou and the town moved three times, ending at today's Lingwu (灵武). On 11 May 1998 the State Council abolished Yinnan prefecture and county-level Wuzhong, created prefecture-level Wuzhong and set up Litong District within it.

What to see

Dong Fu (董府), about five kilometres west of the district on the east bank of the Yellow River, is the mansion of Dong Fuxiang (董福祥), a late-Qing general of the Gansu Army. He began it in 1902, after he was dismissed in 1901 and sent home, and finished it in 1905; locals called it the Gongbao Fu (宫保府) after his court title. Rammed-earth walls 8.5 metres high enclose a compound of 106 rooms with brick carvings of animals, plants and mythological scenes. It was listed as a national key cultural relic protection site in 2006.

Food and local products

The district government promotes Litong's morning-tea (早茶) culture and snack streets, and calls it a morning-tea landmark city. Local brands include Maxing watermelons (马兴西瓜) and Long'er Daqing grapes (龙二大青葡萄), and dairy cattle, beef cattle and Tan sheep (滩羊) are the main livestock.

Getting oriented

The district government gives the distances as 60 kilometres to Yinchuan (银川), 40 kilometres to Yinchuan Hedong International Airport and 21 kilometres to Qingtongxia railway station. The Yinchuan–Xi'an high-speed railway, fully open since 2020, passes through.

Highlights

• Dong Fu 董府: Mansion of the Qing general Dong Fuxiang, built 1902–1905; national key cultural relic protection site since 2006.
• Morning tea 早茶: Promoted by the district government, which calls Litong a morning-tea landmark city.
• Long'er Daqing grapes 龙二大青葡萄: One of the district's named fruit brands.