Ningyang County 宁阳县

Setting and landscape

The Dawen River forms the northern boundary, with Daiyue District (岱岳区) and Feicheng (肥城) on the far bank. Xintai (新泰) lies to the east, Wenshang County (汶上县) to the west, and Qufu and Sishui (泗水) to the southeast. The land is higher in the east, where low mountains and hills rise, and opens into plain in the west. The Liangshan marshes (水泊梁山) are 40 kilometres from the county town.

History

A Ningyang County was first set up under the Han. The Northern Qi made it Pingyuan County (平原县), the Sui renamed it Gongqiu County (龚丘县), and the Jin restored the name Ningyang.

Baotou Village (堡头村) in Ciyao (磁窑镇) holds a late Neolithic site that was the earliest excavated site of the Dawenkou culture (大汶口文化). The culture was first identified at Baotou in 1959; the site spreads west of the village and around Dawenkou (大汶口) in Tai'an, which gave the culture its name.

What to see

The Yanzi Temple (颜子庙) in Sigao Village (泗皋村), Heshan (鹤山镇), honours Yan Hui (颜回), the disciple Confucius prized most, whom later generations revered as the "Second Sage" (复圣). The temple keeps a Yuan-dynasty structural feature in its roof beams. Together with the Yan family cemetery (颜林), it entered the seventh batch of national key protected cultural sites in 2013.

Ningyang also has a long tradition of cricket fighting, and its crickets are known as "the first insect north of the Yangtze" (江北第一虫).

Highlights

• Yanzi Temple and Yan Cemetery 宁阳颜子庙和颜林: Temple to Confucius's disciple Yan Hui in Heshan, a national key protected site since 2013.
• Baotou Village Neolithic site 堡头村: In Ciyao; the earliest excavated site of the Dawenkou culture.
• Ningyang crickets 宁阳蟋蟀: Known as "the first insect north of the Yangtze" in a county with a cricket-fighting tradition.