Mount Qingcheng and the Dujiangyan Irrigation System

 

 

Mount Qingcheng, located in the southwest of Dujiangyan City, Sichuan Province, is over 2,000 m above sea level. Adorned with ancient trees, it is regarded as one of the birth-places of Taoism. At one time, there were more than 100 Taoist temples, and even today dozens remain intact. Two of them are of particular interest- the Tianshi (Grand Master's) Cave and the Shangqing (Superior Heaven) Palace.

 

The Dujiangyan IrrigationSystem, a huge water-conservancy project and triumph of hydrology, was built by the local prefect Li Bing in227 BC, during the reign of Emperor Zhao of Qin. It is situated west of Dujiangyan City, Sichuan Province. The oldest water-conservancy project in China - a landmark in the history of Chinese scientific and technological development, it is also the oldest and only extant major water-conservancy project without a dam diversion in the world. The project used to bring a lot of farmland under irrigation, turning the West Sichuan Plain into a "land of abundance." It still performs this role today. A map of the areas irrigated by the Dujiangyan irrigation system showing Mount Longquan and the Minjiang and Tuojiang rivers.