Yanchi County 盐池县

Setting and landscape

Chinese Wikipedia places the county on the upper reaches of the Shanshui River (山水河) and notes that much of its land is alkaline waste where crops grow poorly. The county government describes a dry climate with little rain, plenty of sunshine and a gap of about 28°C between average winter and summer temperatures; Chinese Wikipedia gives averages of −8.1°C in January and 22.8°C in July. Usable grassland far exceeds farmland. The county was made a key county of the Three-North Shelterbelt (三北防护林) programme in 1978, and in 2002 it was the first in Ningxia to close its hills to grazing.

Haba Lake (哈巴湖), in the north-centre of the county 37 kilometres from the county town, is a national nature reserve; the lake covers 160,000 hectares in all, 21,600 of them wetland. Microlithic sites have been found along the old lake shore west of the lake.

History

According to the county government, a county named Xuyan (煦衍) was set up here in the early Han. The Ming stationed the Huamachi garrison (花马池营) here and built the walled town of Huamachi; its remains, the Huamachi Old City Site (花马池古城址), were listed as a Ningxia protected heritage site on 15 September 2005. Yanchi County itself dates from 1913. On 21 June 1936 the Red Army's Western Expedition took the county town and set up what the county government calls Ningxia's first county-level Red government; Yanchi then served as the economic centre and northwestern gateway of the Shaanxi–Gansu–Ningxia Border Region.

What to see

The county government counts four lines of Sui and Ming Great Wall in the county, more than 250 kilometres in all, and notes that such well-preserved Sui wall is rare in China; it calls the county a museum of the Great Wall. It also points to Great Wall beacon mounds from the Qin and Han periods and to sites of the revolutionary period.

Food and local products

Tan sheep are the county's main livestock, and the county government calls Yanchi the hometown of China's Tan sheep; its mutton was served at the state banquets of the G20 summit in Hangzhou and the BRICS summit in Xiamen. Chinese Wikipedia also lists Tan sheep fur among local products. In 1995 the State Council named Yanchi the hometown of Chinese licorice (甘草); it is also named a hometown of buckwheat.

Getting oriented

National highways G307 and G338 pass through the county, and the Dingbian–Yinchuan railway (定银铁路) has a Yanchi station.

Highlights

• Sui and Ming Great Wall 隋、明长城: Four lines of wall, more than 250 km in the county, including rare well-preserved Sui sections.
• Haba Lake 哈巴湖: National nature reserve 37 km from the county town; 160,000 ha in all, 21,600 ha of it wetland.
• Huamachi Old City Site 花马池古城址: Ming walled-town site, a Ningxia protected heritage site since 2005.
• Tan sheep 滩羊: The county's main livestock; its mutton was served at G20 Hangzhou state banquets.
• Yanchi licorice 盐池甘草: Named hometown of Chinese licorice by the State Council in 1995.