Zhaojin Xiangshan Scenic Area 照金香山

About Zhaojin Xiangshan Scenic Area

Zhaojin is the site of the Shaanxi-Gansu border base area. The China City News feature records that in 1933 Liu Zhidan, Xie Zichang and other figures of the older generation established at Zhaojin the north-west's first mountain revolutionary base area, the Shaanxi-Gansu border Zhaojin base, which prepared the ground for the later northern Shaanxi base and gave the Central Red Army a place to come to on the Long March. The China Tourism News profile says the Zhaojin memorial hall to the Shaanxi-Gansu border base has a floor area of 6,500 square metres over two exhibition floors, the ground floor holding an introductory hall and a main exhibition in eight units on the founding of the base, and the upper floor a memorial section for the base's heroes and a themed oil-painting section. The same profile describes the base memorial on the hilltop, 33 metres high – a figure it says stands for 1933, the year the base was founded – with reliefs of the base's history around its base.

Xiangshan is the other half. The profile says the hill takes its name from a temple standing on its sunny side among flowers whose scent fills the air, that it is made up of three peaks in a row from east to west, and that it was anciently called Sanshi Mountain and Bijia Mountain. It gives the hill an average elevation of 1,415.06 metres with the west peak highest at 1,430.6 metres, records that it is a national AAAA-grade scenic area, and describes it as a rocky hill of Cretaceous Yijun conglomerate and Fenghuangshan conglomerate with a typical danxia landform. At Xuejiazhai in Zhaojin town, the profile says, the leadership organs of the Shaanxi-Gansu border party, government and army moved in during 1933 and used four natural caves on the hill for a Red Army garrison, a uniform workshop, a military hospital, an arsenal and the quarters of the border special committee.

The temple that gives Xiangshan its name is not described by any cited page. The available accounts cover the hill's name, its peaks and its geology, and say nothing about the temple's buildings, its date or its layout.

What to look for

• The three peaks of Xiangshan in a row from east to west, with the west peak the highest at 1,430.6 metres.
• The Cretaceous conglomerate of the hill, named in the profile as Yijun conglomerate and Fenghuangshan conglomerate, and the danxia landform it forms.
• The memorial hall to the Shaanxi-Gansu border base at Zhaojin, which the profile describes as two exhibition floors of 6,500 square metres.
• The four natural caves at Xuejiazhai that the profile says the base's leadership used in 1933.
• The base memorial on the hilltop, which the profile gives as 33 metres high, a figure chosen for the year 1933.

Location & getting there

Getting to Zhaojin Xiangshan Scenic Area

Check which interiors and courtyards are accessible. Active places of worship and protected monuments may have different visitor rules.

• Search for 照金香山 with 铜川市 and 耀州区.