Zhongba Grand Canyon 中坝大峡谷

About Zhongba Grand Canyon

The canyon extends for more than ten kilometres and the page divides it into five scenic sections — the Grand Canyon, the Small Canyon, Niuxin Gorge, Longdong and Huangcunba — together with more than a hundred named points, a count the page itself gives. Among them are Xiangshui Pool, Yingzui Cliff, Zhuyao Gorge, Wangzi Cave, Tianxin Pit and a thousand-year-old ginkgo, and the page describes the landscape as combining peaks, rock, caves, forest, birds, animals, springs, pools and waterfalls.

Inside the roughly seven-kilometre Grand Canyon the walls close to a slot at most ten metres wide, with rock faces rising almost 600 metres on either side. The page names Sheshen Cliff, Yaozi Rock and Yingzui Peak among the features here, describing the last as a blade-like summit whose mid-height spur resembles an eagle about to take flight. The Small Canyon, less than a metre wide in places, forms repeated waterfalls within a kilometre; the page records springs at the Qinglong, Huanglong and Malong caves that it says never dry up or overflow whatever the weather.

At the canyon's far end the page describes a village of earth-walled and stone houses set among ancient ginkgo woodland and several hundred mu of flat farmland, whose residents it says keep to traditional ways of working and living. It records more than 200 wild ginkgo trees over a century old at Huangcunba, yielding over five tonnes of ginkgo nuts a year. The page also dates the start of organised development, recording an agreement signed on 30 May 2008 between the county and a Xi'an media company to invest 30 million yuan in the canyon tourism project. A separate page on the same government portal reports that a national scenic-area quality-grading panel inspected the canyon's application for the national 4A-grade listing in April 2013, work on which that page says had begun in 2012; it does not state that the listing was granted.

What to look for

• The inner Grand Canyon, where the page records walls almost 600 metres high and a slot no more than ten metres wide
• Named rock features the page lists, among them Sheshen Cliff, Yaozi Rock and Yingzui Peak
• The waterfalls of the Small Canyon and the springs at the Qinglong, Huanglong and Malong caves
• The ancient ginkgo woodland at Huangcunba, where the page records more than 200 wild trees over a century old
• The village of earth-walled and stone houses at the canyon's far end, set among ginkgo trees and farmland

Location & getting there

Getting to Zhongba Grand Canyon

Confirm the visitor entrance and which boat or walking routes operate on your date. Rainfall, water levels and weather can change access.

• Search for 中坝大峡谷 with 安康市 and 石泉县.