Overview of Shaoguan
Situated in the northern part of Guangdong, bordering on Chenzhou, Hunan and Ganzhou, Jiangxi in the north and joined by the Pearl River Delta in the south, Shaoguan is the political, economic and cultural center and a hub of communications in north Guangdong. It has Lechang City, Nanxiong City, Qujiang District, Wujiang District, Zhenjiang District, Renhua County, Shixing County, Wengyuan County, Xinfeng County and Ruyuan Yao Nationality Autonomous County under its jurisdiction. It has a total area of 18,400 square meters and a population of 3.2 million. The area of city proper is an area of 2, 856 square meters, and the population of the city proper is 900,000.
Shaoguan has a long-standing history, and is the hometown of “Maba People” and the cradle of Shixia Culture. With 2100 years of urban history, Shaozhou was called the “famous county of south of Five Ridges”, cultivating such worthies as Hou Andu, the key official in the Chen Dynasty, Zhang Jiuling, the famous prime minister in the Tang Dynasty, Yu Jing, the well-known official in the Song Dynasty and Huineng, the sixth ancestor of Zen. With beautiful mountains, a galaxy of talent and numerous scenic spots, Shaoguan is acclaimed as a galaxy of south China scene. It has simple folkway, where the people are warm and hospitable. Shaoguan is one of the cities with the best social security in Guangdong.
Due to unique geographical position and well-developed transportation system, Shaoguan has been the key land passage and pass of north China and the middle and lower reaches of the Changjiang River and the south China coast as well as the distribution center for commodities at the boundary between Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi and the “golden passage” of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau radiating the inland. Shaoguan is the hub city of state highway transportation as well as one of the six urban areas and the regional key cities for key planned development in Guangdong. Rich in mineral resources, Shaoguan is the reputable “hometown of nonferrous metal” in China. Rich in material resources, Shaogan ranks first in its forest resources. It is a key national forest area, acclaimed as the biological gene bank in south China.
Attractions in Shaoguan
Danxia Mountain
Danxia Mountain, a geological park of the world, lies within the boundaries of Shaoguan, covering an area of 290 square kilometers. It is the most beautiful beauty spot with the largest area. Since1988, Danxia Mountain has been chosen as national scenic spot, national geological landscape reserve, the tourist zone of national AAAA grade and national-level geological park. On February 13,2004, it was chosen as the first batch of geological parks of the world by UNESCO, becoming a member of world geological park network.
Jinji Mountain
Jinji Mountain is located in pingshi Town of Lechang City where Jing-Guang Tailway and Jing-Zhu Express Highway go through. The mountain altitude is 338m, and its total area is about 40ha. Jinji Mountain is the typical landform in Danxia and it is one of the eight tourist resorts in Guanddong Province. The mountain reserves its name because of the fact that there is a huge stone which looks like the crowing cock. There are many scenic spots in Jinji Mountain,among which Yizi(dash-form)Peak,Jinji Stone,canyon and site of Hong Xuanjiao’s revolting against the Qing forces are the most prominent.
Nanling National Forest Park
Nanling National Forest Park, with a total area of 27,300 hectares, lie within the boundaries of Yao Autonomous County of Ruyuan, 8 kilometers away from the exit of Jingzhu Highway Bridge. It is the only virgin forest retain in Guangdong and core area of Nanling Mountain as well as the largest oasis in the desert band at the latitude. Some scenic spots have been developed, including highest peak in Guangdong (Shikeng Kong, 1920 meters of elevation), Guangdong Pine Group, Waterfall Group and Qinshui(Water) valley, etc…
Guangdong Grand Canyon
Guangdong Grand Canyon lies in Dabu Town, Yao Autonomous County of Ruyan, 70 kilometers away from the Ruyuan exit of Jingzhu Highway. The canyon, one of the quartz sandstone canyon landforms, is 15 kilometer long, more than 300 meters deep. The bottom of the canyon is smooth and the Hukou Waterfall washes the valley bottom from more than 200 meters of disconnected precipices directly, creating the impressive Chengtou Waterfall. There is a “sky ladder” with 1386 stone steps reaching the bottom at a bevel of 50 degrees. The gully is vertical-horizontal, the grotesque peak stands in great numbers, and the ancient wood reaches to the sky. It is really a wonderful workmanship here.
Cheba Ridge
Cheba Ridge national-level natural protection area, with a total area of 7545 hectares lies in the southeast of Shixing County, 46 kilometers away from the county seat. In the area widely spreads the virgin forest inhabiting large quantities animals under national-level protection, such as Huanan tigers. So it is praised as “a treasure-house of species and a bright pearl of Nanling”. The protection area, integrating scientific research, amusement and leisure, as well as exploration and body buildup, is one of the main scenic spots of eco-tour in Guangdong Province.
Yunji Mountain
Yunji Mountain, with an area of 2700 hectares, lies in Xingfeng County. It is a provincial nature protection area with the highest peak at the height of 1438 meters, which is the highest one in Guangdong. Here is the source of Xingfeng jiang reservoir, the source of portable water for Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Yunji Mountain is a good place for mounting and exploring, investigating in the forest, viewing waterfall and stones, tasting spring water and bathing.
Ancient Buddha Rock
Ancient Buddha Rock lines in west of Lechang city , 5 kilometers away from Lechang city and 54 kilometers away from the urban area of Shaoguan. It is a large-scale limestone cave with stalactites and stalagmites. There are three layers with the highest point of 30 meters. The cave is about 12000square meters with various kinds of stone bamboo speots, stone flowers, stone posts and stone curtains. Besider, there are corallites 300 million years ago and rare large-scale stone brains.
Nanhua Buddhist Temple
Nanhua Buddhist Temple lies on the side of Caoxi, six kilometers away from Maba Town, Qujiang County. The temple was first built in A.D.502, more than 1,500 years ago. Huineng(A.D.638-713), the sixth ancestor of Buddhist gave speeches here for 37 years and brought out The Sixth Ancestor Giving Speech, the only classics of China’s Buddhism. The temple with a construction area of 12,000 square meters was repaired throughout the years.
Nine Raids and Eighteen Beaches Drift
Nine Raids and Eighteen Beaches Drift lies in the Wujiang River between Pingshi Town and the urban area of Lechang city, It runs 60 kilometers with 65 meters of drop. The name comes from the nine rapids and eighteen dangerous beaches. The river winds its way with peaks rising on both sides. Four the four seasons of the year, there are different colors here and the drift is a surprise without danger. The first drift here occurred in 1978 as the first drift in rivers in China.
Caoxi Hot Spring Holiday Village
There is an abundant resource of host spring in Shaoguan, which accounts 22% of the whole in Guangdong. Caoxi Hot Spring Holiday Village is a full-length travel resort covering an area of 500,000 square meters by right of Nanhua Hot Spring. The holiday village lies in Maba Town in Qujiang with national road 106 passing in front, 6 Kilometers away from the Shaoguan southern exit of jingzhu highway and 3 kilometers away from Nanhua Buddhist temple. There are more than 130 villas and 600 luxurious guest rooms as well as auxiliary facilities such as restaurants, bars, dancing hall, International Conference Centre and business center.
Bibei Yao Fastness
Bibei Yao Fastness lies in Bibei Town,Ruyuan Yao Autonomous County. The name comes from “back of turtle”, In Chinese ,turtle is locally pronounced as Bi. Because the “鳖”(turtle in Chinese)is so complicated that the name becomes Bibei.Bibei Yao Fastness is the origin of the overseas Yao nationality. It is surrounded with mountains here and there are distinctive buildings here. You can not only enjoy the beautiful scene here, but also have a taste of the old and peculiar conditions and customs of Yao nationality.
Mantang Enclosed Building
Shaoguan is one of the gathering residences of the Hakkas people. Enclosed building is the most characteristic building in Hakkas’local-style dwelling houses. At present, there are over 300 enclosed buildings in Shaoguan,of which Mantang Enclosed Building in Aizi Town Shixing County is the masterpiece. Mantang Enclosed Building, covering an area of 13.545 square meters, is the largest one in China and is praised as “the largest enclosed building in Lingnan” and “the No.1 private residence of North Guangdong”. The building integrates the ancient guileless and modem delicacy, assembling ancient and modern Hakkas’local conditions and customs, offering valuable material object for source, course, development and change of the near modem architecture. It was classified as the national major historical and cultural sites under state protection in 1996.
Site of Maba People and Shixia Site
Site of Maba People and Shixia Site, well known at home and abroad, lie 1.5 kilometers away in the southeast of Qujiang county seat and 18 kilometers from Shaoguan. Maba People is a type of ancient mankind between pithecanthrope and modem people, living in the Old Stone Age at about 129,000 years ago. Shixia Site was classified as the national major historical and cultural sites under state protection in 2001.
Ancient Zhuji Lane
1.5-kilometer-long Ancient Zhuji Lane lies in Zhuji Town 9 kilometers to the north of Nanxiong City. The road surface is built with the cobblestone. In history, Ancient Zhuji Lane was located in the main traffic artery between Central Plains and Lingnan. Being the origin of residents in Zhujiang River Delta as well as the ancestral home of a great amount of overseas Chinese, it is praised as “hometown to Cantonese”. The solid stone tower built in Yuan Dynasty is the only stone tower with accurate age confirmed in Guangdong and is listed in the historical relics under protection.
Ancient Meiguan path
Ancient Meiguan path was called Hengpuguan and Qinguan in the ancient time ,Locating in the Mei Ridge 20 kilometers away from Nanxiong City in the north ,The path was first built during the period of Qin Dynasty and Han Dynasty, under the lead of Zhang Jiuling ,a famous prime minister in the year of A.D.716.It is the shortese traffic artery connecting Yangtze River and Zhujiang River.Meiguan is a beautiful place with the best-kept ancient path-Ancient Meiguan path at the length of 8,000 meters, and plum blossoms all over the mountain. Countless poets have come here to pay a visit here.
Transpotation in Shaoguan
Railway
Shaoguan is an important connection city on Beijing-Guangzhou main transport artery and FuJian-Guangxi subordinate trunk, Shaoguan railway station is a first-class station of Beijing-Guangzhou railway, with trains always on the move all stopping there, over 200 passenger trains and freight trains with Jingjiu and Hujiu railways included stopping or starting there every day, and goods being transported directly to most of the railway cities in China. Wuhan-Guangzhou express railway which is being planned to be built has been listed in the top ten projects in Guangdong province and the plan of important national main railway lines , and it has been started building and will be completely opened to traffic by 2008 , and it will only take you over 40 minutes from Shaoguan to Guangzhou then. Moreover . Shaoguan-Ganzhou railway is planned to be built.
Expressway, national highway
Shaoguan has a perfect highway network with expressways and all kinds of high-class highways as the framework, and the highway density is 51 kilometer/hundred square kilometers “Two-hour Life Circle” from Shaoguan downtown to county area, and “Two-hour Economic Circle” from downtown to Guangzhou have been basically realized. Beijing-Zhuhai expressway, 105, 106, 107 national highways go through Shaoguan from north to south, and 323 national highway goes horizontally from east to west. It takes only over an hour from Shaoguan downtown to Guangzhou new Baiyun international airport by car, and only two hours from Shaoguan to Guangzhou, and less than 3 hours from Shaoguan to Dongguan and Shenzhen. Moreover, Shaoguan-Ganzhou expressway , Hunan-Shenzhen expressway , Shantou-Hechi expressway which are planned to build all go through Shaoguan downtown or parts of the county or the city.
Water transport
Shaoguan is one of the important channels of the North River valley with advantageous conditions of inland water transport. There are 311 kilometers high-class channels, 29 docks. 69 berths, 7343 meters long berth, A berth with 618-ton throughput capacity. The new Shaoguan port lies in Shaoguan downtown with container docks for special use and 1000 thousand tons of annual handling capacity. The whole journey from Shaoguan port to Tunmen port of HongKong is 260 sea miles, and cargo steamships with containers can directly arrive in Hong Kong and Macao in 24 hours. With increasing dredging scale of Guangdong province to channels of big rivers including the North River, water transport capacity of Shaoguan will have remarkable progress.