Yiyang 益阳Yìyáng

About Yiyang

Yiyang runs from the low farmland and channels of southern Dongting Lake up the Zi River into the hills of Anhua. Anhua is known across China for its dark tea, aged and pressed into bricks and other shapes, and its valleys keep stretches of an old tea-horse road and roofed wind-and-rain bridges. Nearer the city, bamboo covers the hills along the Peach Blossom River at Taojiang, and the diplomat Ho Feng-Shan, who issued visas to Jews fleeing Vienna in 1938, was born in Yiyang.

What to eat in Yiyang

• Anhua dark tea (安化黑茶)

Listed sites in Yiyang

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

• Anhua Tea-Horse Road Scenic Area 安化茶马古道 4A scenic area · on the map
  A gorge-and-forest scenic area in Jiangnan town, eastern Anhua, built around stretches of the old mountain trade road on which Anhua's dark tea was carried out by horse caravans; the county presents it as the starting point of the Hunan section of the Ten-Thousand-Li Tea Road.
• Baihuazhai Tea Garden 百花寨 4A scenic area · on the map
  A tea-and-countryside scenic area around Baihuazhai hill above Taoxi town in Anhua, centred on an organic tea plantation and an eco-farm that also grows rice, fruit and vegetables.
• Chaxiang Huahai Flower Park 茶乡花海 4A scenic area · on the map
  A flower park in Anhua County laid out beside the large Chaxiang Huahai resettlement community, built for villagers moved out of the mountains under the poverty-relief programme, and opened to visitors in April 2020.
• Luowen Graffiti Village 罗文村 4A scenic area · on the map
  A farming village in Wuzui township, Nan County, on a spit of land between the waterways of the Dongting Lake plain, whose houses are painted with large colourful graffiti murals and which is ringed by flower fields, best known for rapeseed blossom in early spring.
• Meishan Culture Park 梅山文化园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A privately built culture park in Xianxi town, eastern Anhua, begun in 2007 to present the history, customs and folk art of the old Meishan region of central Hunan.
• Qingxi Village (Zhou Libo's Home Village) 清溪村 4A scenic area · on the map
  The village in Xielingang town, Heshan District, on the southern outskirts of Yiyang where the writer Zhou Libo was born in 1908 and later lived while writing about country life, and which is presented as the real-life setting of his 1958 novel Great Changes in a Mountain Village (山乡巨变).
• Qingyun Cave (Yunshang Jiuge) 青云洞 4A scenic area · on the map
  A natural limestone cave in Maluxi village, Malu town, in western Anhua County, reopened in April 2023 after redevelopment by a private tourism company.
• Taohuajiang Bamboo Forest 桃花江竹海 4A scenic area · on the map
  A large bamboo forest on the edge of Taojiang county town, which the county presents as one of China's ten great 'bamboo seas', with more than 50,000 mu (about 33 km²) of continuous bamboo.
• Tianyi Muguo Wood Art Park 天意木国 4A scenic area · on the map
  A wood-art park by Yuxing Lake in the Yuxingshan area of Yiyang's Eastern New District, opened in September 2018 by a Zhuhai company and presented as a 'world wood culture museum'.
• Yiyang Olympic Park 益阳奥林匹克公园 4A scenic area
  A sports park in Heshan District on the south side of Yiyang, built for the 2002 Hunan Provincial Games, with a 30,000-seat stadium, a 5,000-seat arena, a swimming hall, outdoor pools and public fitness grounds.
• Yuntai Mountain, Anhua 云台山 4A scenic area · on the map
  A tea-growing mountain in Malu town, western Anhua, whose top is a basin of about 9 km² rising to 998 m and often wrapped in cloud, known locally as 'the plain on the mountain'.
• Zhenyan Academy 箴言书院 4A scenic area · on the map
  An academy founded by Hu Linyi, a Qing official and leader of the Xiang Army, and completed in the 1860s, which became a school in 1905 and was rebuilt on its original site in Heshan District, opening to the public on 31 December 2023.
• Zijinwan Happy Kingdom 紫金湾欢乐王国 4A scenic area · on the map
  An amusement park on the east side of the Taohuajiang bamboo forest outside Taojiang county town, with fairground rides and play areas aimed at families with children.
• Changjiao Massacre Memorial Hall 厂窖惨案遗址 National heritage site
  The memorial site in Changjiao town, Nan County, for the Changjiao massacre of 9–12 May 1943, in which Japanese troops killed some 30,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers trapped between the rivers of the Dongting Lake plain, according to Chinese surveys.
• Covered Bridges of Anhua (Yongxi Bridge) 安化风雨桥 National heritage site · on the map
  A group of roofed timber 'wind-and-rain' bridges, 29 of them spread over 17 townships of Anhua County, of which eleven were listed together in 2013.
• Lutheran Mission Buildings, Yiyang 信义校会建筑群 National heritage site · on the map
  Four buildings put up by the Lutheran mission in Yiyang between 1904 and 1924 in a mix of Chinese and Western styles: the teaching building and two teachers' houses of the former Xinyi (Lutheran) University on Taohualun, and a pastor's house at Wumafang across the Zi River.
• Meicheng Confucian and Martial Temples 梅城文武庙 National heritage site · on the map
  Anhua's old Confucian temple and its neighbouring Martial Temple in Meicheng town, listed together in 2019.
• Qujiang Tea Garden 渠江茶园 National heritage site · on the map
  A tea garden of more than 500 mu (about 33 ha) in Daan village, Qujiang town, in the hills of western Anhua, one of the historic sources of Anhua dark tea and listed as a national heritage site in 2019.

On the map

Open Yiyang 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)