Chengbei District 城北区

Setting and landscape

The district government describes Chengbei as ringed by three hills, Xiaoyou Shan (小酉山), Dayou Shan (大酉山) and Beishan (北山), with the Huangshui and Beichuan rivers crossing it. The district has been building greenways: a landscaped Huangshui greenway in 2015, the S-Bridge greenway in 2017, and from 2018 a Beichuan riverside greenway and a country greenway along the Beichuan canal, planned to bring the district's greenway network to nearly 20 kilometres. The district also names the Beichuan River Wetland Park (北川河湿地公园) among its landmarks.

What to see

Beichan Temple (北禅寺), also called Beishan Temple and Tulou Guan (土楼观), sits on Beishan about 2 kilometres from the city. It began as a Buddhist temple and later became Taoist. The cliff is a Danxia landform of horizontal purple-red sandstone and conglomerate layered with gypsum and mirabilite, weathered into caves that local people call the "nine grottoes and eighteen caves". The earliest written record of the site is in the Commentary on the Water Classic (水经注) by the Northern Wei traveller Li Daoyuan (郦道元), who noted the Huangshui flowing east past an earthen tower backed by hills to the north; the name Tulou Guan comes from that tower. It became a Qinghai provincial heritage site on 27 May 1986.

The Qinghai Tibetan Culture Museum (青海藏文化博物院), also known as the Qinghai Tibetan Medicine Culture Museum, is devoted to Tibetan medicine. It opened in 2006, and its second floor displays a thangka 618 metres long that entered Guinness World Records; a second phase opened on 9 November 2018. The Qinghai Tibetan Plateau Natural History Museum (青海青藏高原自然博物馆) stands on the same road, Jing'er Road (经二路), in the district's biotech industrial park.

The Shenna site (沈那遗址), a national key heritage site dating from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, is presented in the district as the Shenna Site Park (沈那遗址公园).

Getting oriented

The district is divided into four subdistricts, among them Huochexizhan (火车西站, "West Railway Station"), and two towns, Dabaozi (大堡子) and Ershilipu (二十里铺); the government sits in Chaoyang subdistrict (朝阳街道). Qinghai University (青海大学) and Qinghai Normal University (青海师范大学) are in the district, and the Qinghai–Tibet Railway (青藏铁路), the Xining–Datong railway (宁大铁路) and the Lanzhou–Xining Expressway (兰西高速) pass through it.

Highlights

• Beichan Temple (Tulou Guan) 北禅寺: Cliff temple on Beishan among Danxia caves, a provincial heritage site since 1986.
• Qinghai Tibetan Culture Museum 青海藏文化博物院: Museum of Tibetan medicine with a 618-metre thangka listed by Guinness World Records.
• Qinghai Tibetan Plateau Natural History Museum 青海青藏高原自然博物馆: Natural history museum on Jing'er Road in the biotech industrial park.
• Shenna Site Park 沈那遗址公园: Park at the Shenna site, a national key heritage site of the Neolithic to Bronze Age.
• Beichuan River Wetland Park 北川河湿地公园: Wetland park on the Beichuan, named by the district among its landmarks.