Fengkai's tourism enjoyed substantial growth during the Spring
Festival Golden Week this year, with the number of tourists and
tourist income double the same period last year.
According to the county's tourism bureau, tourists come mainly
from the Pearl River Delta within Guangdong Province. Some are from
Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and nearby Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous
Region.
Most have a common destination: the Fengkai National Geological
Park, China's first geological park named after a county.
The park is located in Fengkai County in the city of Zhaoqing in
South China's Guangdong Province. It covers an area of 1,326 square
kilometers with a core area of 117 square kilometers.
The Ministry of Land and Resources approved the establishment of
the park on August 31, 2005.
It is the first geological park in the Pearl River Valley with
abundant geological relics, such as karst landform, granite
landform, Hoodo rocks, fossils of ancient man (in the Old Stone
Age) and animals, mine relics, geological disaster relics and river
relics.
The park is not only a museum of geological resources, but also
a picturesque place with uncommon scenery, including huge rocks,
strangely shaped peaks, deep caves, forests, green mountains and
clear waters.
The most remarkable site in the park might be a huge rock called
"Daban Rock," the largest rock in the world. With colorful stripes,
the single rock forms a hill itself.
A giant granite hemisphere formed by faulting and weathering,
the rock is 1,365 meters long, 695 meters wide and 191.3 meters
high, with a perimeter of 4,100 meters and occupying an area of
73.4 hectares.
The only comparable rock in the world is Ayers Rock in central
Australia. However, while Ayers Rock is composed of several layers
of stone, Daban Rock is made up of a single huge, smooth stone
without any cracks.
A folk legend tells us that a goddess of remote antiquity left
behind the rock as she tried to patch the sky with stone
blocks.
From afar, Daban Rock looks like a colorful waterfall.
The park is also famous for the Sungling landform, formed
through more than 300 million years of ecological evolution.
The Karst landform in the park is representative of the
sub-tropical Karst landform and very similar to that of Guilin.
The Hejiang River flowing through the park is a branch of the
Pearl River, China's third largest river. An extremely tortuous
river with countless twists and turns, the Hejiang River in the
park, however, flows gently and its clear water reflects the green
mountains by its banks.
The fossils and relics of ancient man in the park date back
150,000 years, and provide a unique and systematic record of human
evolution in South China.
"The park is special in the fact that it has abundant and
concentrated geological resources, which are rare and beautiful,"
says Zhang Chengbo, a researcher from the Centre of Earth
Environment and Resources in Sun Yat-Sen University in
Guangzhou.
Zhang summarizes the park's characteristics as "small and
exquisite, complete and diversified."
"Besides, the area has the profound cultural background of being
the birthplace of South China Culture."
Fengkai County is located in the west of Guangdong Province and
on the upper reaches of the Pearl River, neighbouring Wuzhou and
Hezhou in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
The county, with an area of 2,723 square kilometers and a
population of 470,000, holds a strategic geographical position on
the border of Guangdong and Guangxi.
Since ancient times, it has been called "the Gateway linking
Guangdong and Guangxi" and served as a hub for political, economic
and cultural communication between South and Central China.
Fengkai has the distinction of being the earliest local
administrative centre in the region.
In 111 BC, Emperor Wudi of the Western Han Dynasty (206BC AD24)
established the Jiaozhou state in South China and chose Fengkai as
the capital.
Since then, Fengkai County has been a cultural centre and
produced a lot of intellectuals, such as Chen Qin and Chen Yuan,
pioneers of the study of Confucian classics in the Western Han
Dynasty, and Muzi, a scholar who promoted the sinicization of
Buddhism from India.
(China Daily March 31, 2006)
