Nanyang 南阳Nányáng

About Nanyang

Nanyang fills a basin ringed on three sides by mountains. At Wolong Gang a Wuhou Temple honours the strategist Zhuge Liang, who by a disputed tradition lived there before serving Liu Bei, and the city honours the physician Zhang Zhongjing and the astronomer Zhang Heng. Neixiang keeps a well-preserved Qing county yamen, Sheqi a richly decorated Qing guild hall built by Shanxi and Shaanxi merchants, and Xixia beds of fossil dinosaur eggs, while the Danjiangkou Reservoir at Xichuan supplies the South–North Water Transfer's central route.

What to eat in Nanyang

• Zhenping roast chicken (镇平烧鸡)

Listed sites in Nanyang

35 sites in Nanyang are on the official lists. Those with a page of their own link to it; the rest open as cards on the map.

• Xixia Dinosaur Remains Park and Laojieling 西峡恐龙遗迹园—老界岭 5A scenic area · on the map
  Two separate parts of the Funiu Mountain Global Geopark in Xixia County share this 5A listing.
• Baihetan Park 白河滩公园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A riverside park stretching for nearly 10 km along the Bai River at Xinye, landscaped over some 8 km² with footpaths, waterside platforms and themed gardens of tulips, peach, cherry and roses.
• Baotianman Gorge Rafting 宝天曼峡谷漂流 4A scenic area · on the map
  A whitewater rafting trip on the Tuan River through the gorges on the southern side of the Baotianman nature reserve in the Funiu Mountains.
• Baotianman Scenic Area (Nanzhao) 南召宝天曼 4A scenic area · on the map
  The Nanzhao County side of the Baotianman forests, near Qiaoduan in the Funiu Mountains, where the nature reserve's main peak reaches about 1,830 m.
• Baotianman Scenic Area (Neixiang) 宝天曼 4A scenic area · on the map
  The visitor area of the Baotianman National Nature Reserve in the Funiu Mountains, a UNESCO biosphere reserve since 2001 that protects an unusually complete forest on the transition between China's subtropical and warm-temperate zones.
• Danjiang Daguanyuan 丹江大观苑 4A scenic area · on the map
  A lakeside resort park built by a private company on peninsulas and islets on the north shore of the Danjiangkou Reservoir, the source of the middle route of the South–North Water Transfer Project.
• Deyunshan Botanical Garden 德云山风情植物园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A commercial flower park laid out since 2015 on the hills at Erlangmiao, south-east of Fangcheng town, below a wind farm.
• Erlong Mountain Scenic Area 中原二龙山 4A scenic area · on the map
  A mountain scenic area in the north of Neixiang County, inside the Funiu Mountain Global Geopark, named for a ridge of ten linked peaks said to look like two dragons playing with a pearl.
• Guanhe River Rafting 鹳河漂流 4A scenic area · on the map
  A whitewater rafting run of about 12 km on the upper Laoguan (Guan) River in the mountains of Xixia County, through some eighteen rapids.
• Huazhou Academy 花洲书院 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  An academy founded in the 1040s by the statesman Fan Zhongyan while he was governor of Dengzhou, where he wrote his famous essay 'On Yueyang Tower'.
• Laojun Cave Scenic Area 老君洞 4A scenic area · on the map
  A large forested mountain area at Erlangping in northern Xixia County, in the core of the Funiu Mountain Global Geopark, with more than a dozen peaks over 1,000 m, rivers and springs.
• Longtan Gully Scenic Area 龙潭沟 4A scenic area · on the map
  A narrow gorge in the mountains north of Xixia town where a stream drops through a chain of about nineteen waterfalls and deep pools, the highest fall about 35 m.
• Neixiang County Yamen 内乡县衙 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  Regarded as the best-preserved Qing county government office in China, it was rebuilt in 1894 on a site that had been the seat of Neixiang County since 1304, served as the county government until 1968 and became a museum in 1984.
• Qifeng Mountain Ecotourism Area 七峰山 4A scenic area · National heritage site · on the map
  The eastern end of the Funiu Mountains in northern Fangcheng County, a ridge of seven peaks topping out at 768 m with cliffs, caves, ravines and forest.
• Seventy-Two Pools Scenic Area 七十二潭 4A scenic area · on the map
  A river valley in the hills north of Fangcheng where the stream runs over broad sheets of bare rock, forming a long chain of pools and small falls that visitors can wade through.
• Sheqi Shan-Shaan Guild Hall 社旗山陕会馆 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  A guild hall and temple to Guan Yu built over 136 years, from 1756 to 1892, by merchants from Shanxi and Shaanxi trading in the town of Shedian.
• Sishan National Forest Park 寺山国家森林公园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A forested hill park across the Guan River from Xixia town, covering about 7.5 km² of woodland, pools and viewpoints.
• Tongbai Mountain Huaiyuan Scenic Area 桐柏山淮源 4A scenic area · on the map
  The forested country around the source of the Huai River in the Tongbai Mountains on the Henan–Hubei border, beginning just outside Tongbai town.
• Tongbai Revolutionary Memorial Hall 桐柏革命纪念馆 4A scenic area · on the map
  A memorial hall in Tongbai founded in 1984 to commemorate those who died in and around the county during the Long March period, the War of Resistance against Japan and the civil war.
• Wolong Gang 卧龙岗武侯祠 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  The shrine to the Three Kingdoms strategist Zhuge Liang on Wolong Gang, the low ridge south-west of central Nanyang where he is said, in a disputed tradition, to have lived and farmed for about ten years before joining Liu Bei.
• Wuduo Mountain 五朵山 4A scenic area · on the map
  A Taoist mountain on the border of Nanzhao and Zhenping counties whose five rocky summits rise to 1,665 m; tradition links it with Yin Xi, some 2,500 years ago, and the Tang Taoist Wu Yun.
• Xiangyan Temple 香严寺 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  A Buddhist temple in the hills at Cangfang, founded in the Tang dynasty as the seat of the Chan master Nanyang Huizhong and long counted among the four great temples of the Central Plains.
• Yunlu Mountain Scenic Area 云露山 4A scenic area · on the map
  A mountain scenic area of bamboo groves, forest and waterfalls at Mashankou in eastern Neixiang County, part of the Funiu Mountain Global Geopark.
• Zhenping International Jade City 镇平国际玉城 4A scenic area · on the map
  A large jade-trading complex of shops and workshops at Shifosi, the town at the heart of Zhenping County's jade-carving industry, built with private investment in the 2010s.
• Danxia Temple Pagoda Forest 丹霞寺塔林 National heritage site · on the map
  Monks' funerary pagodas of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, in three groups lying 200–760 m from Danxia Temple, a Buddhist monastery at Liushan in Nanzhao County.
• Echeng Temple Pagoda 鄂城寺 National heritage site · on the map
  A small temple at Shiqiao north of Nanyang, named after the Han county of Xi'e, with a six-sided brick pagoda founded in 617 under the Sui and rebuilt in the Song.
• Fogou Cliff Carvings 佛沟摩崖造像 National heritage site · on the map
  Song-dynasty Buddhist figures carved in niches on the slope of Xiangshan hill in eastern Fangcheng County, at a spot known locally as Foyegou ('Buddha gully').
• Fusheng Temple Pagoda 福胜寺塔 National heritage site
  A brick pagoda in the centre of Dengzhou, built in 1032 under the Northern Song with thirteen storeys, cut to seven by war damage at the end of the Yuan and repaired in the early Ming.
• Jingziguan Old Town 荆紫关古镇 National heritage site
  A Ming and Qing trading town on the Dan River where Henan, Hubei and Shaanxi meet, whose long old street keeps more than 2,000 rooms of old houses and some 700 shopfronts.
• Main Hall of Yang'an Temple 阳安寺大殿 National heritage site · on the map
  A small Ming-dynasty Buddhist hall in Yantai village, about 20 km north-west of Zhenping town, on a temple site founded in 656.
• Nanyang Prefectural Yamen 南阳府衙 National heritage site
  The office of the prefects of Nanyang from 1271, under the Yuan, to the end of the Qing, described as the only prefecture-level yamen in China to survive complete.
• Puti Temple, Zhenping 菩提寺 National heritage site · on the map
  A Buddhist temple on Xinghua Mountain at Laozhuang in north-eastern Zhenping County, founded in the 650s under the Tang; the buildings on its main axis are Ming and Qing.
• Shrine of the Medical Sage (Zhang Zhongjing Tomb) 医圣祠 National heritage site
  The tomb and memorial shrine of Zhang Zhongjing, the Eastern Han physician revered in China as the 'Medical Sage' and author of the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases.
• Sizhou Temple Pagoda 泗洲寺塔 National heritage site
  A Song-dynasty brick pagoda in Tanghe town, founded in 1095 as part of the Puti Temple of Tangzhou and rebuilt in 1377 under the Ming, with its top repaired after lightning strikes in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
• Tomb of Zhang Heng 张衡墓 National heritage site · on the map
  The tomb of Zhang Heng (78–139), the Eastern Han astronomer, mathematician and poet who presented the first known seismoscope to the court in 132, at Shiqiao in his home district of Xi'e.

On the map

Open Nanyang on the illustrated map to see its outline, its places and listed sites together, and to add them to a trip.

Learn more

• Wikipedia
• Official website
• Wikipedia (Chinese)