Longyangxia Gorge 龙羊峡

About Longyangxia Gorge

The county government's feature on the gorge records the station being dammed on the evening of 29 December 1979 in a high gorge it puts at over 3,000 m, and its generating and supply systems being complete by 1989, when it credits the station with a run of firsts: the Yellow River's first dam, Asia's largest dam, the largest single-unit capacity, the highest-altitude station and China's largest man-made lake. The 1989 report republished on the provincial portal gives the engineering figures: four 320,000 kW units installed by June 1989 and feeding the north-west grid at 330,000 volts, a dam 178 m high, a designed reservoir capacity of 24.7 billion cubic metres, and a station it calls the second largest built in China and the first cascade hub in the Yellow River harnessing plan. The two accounts differ on altitude: the county feature places the damming at over 3,000 m, the 1989 report places the station in a gorge at 2,600 m in Gonghe County. Neither page states who operates the station.

The county feature describes the reservoir's lake as the most striking sight in the area, with gorges, floodplains and open water alternating, grassland around its shores, and a position it describes as facing Qinghai Lake and Riyue mountain across the distance, calling it the largest highland reservoir and man-made lake in China. It describes the terrain inside the scenic area as varied — high mountains, gorges, basins, unusual river valleys, low and middle mountains and desert — so that a visitor can see both the station's structures and the 'high gorge, level lake' scenery, and it lists the Longyangxia earth forest among the landscapes. Those superlatives are the newspaper's own. The pages give no opening status, no ticket arrangement and no boundary for the scenic area.

What to look for

• The dam and the power-station structures, which the county feature says visitors can see from inside the scenic area
• Longyang Lake (龙羊湖), the reservoir the same feature calls the largest highland reservoir and man-made lake in China
• The Yellow River gorge terrain it describes — high mountains, gorges, basins, unusual river valleys, low and middle mountains and desert inside one scenic area
• The Longyangxia earth forest (土林), with its gullies, cave 'gates' high in the air, sandy desert, coloured rocks and fossils

Location & getting there

Getting to Longyangxia Gorge

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

• Search for 龙羊峡 with 海南藏族自治州 and 共和县.