Wushan (Chongqing)

Location of Wushan County in the Chongqing area

Wushan, banks of the Yangtze (1999)

Wushan Bridge over the Yangtze

Wushan ( Chinese  巫山 县 , Pinyin Wūshān Xiàn ) is a district of the government- direct city ​​of Chongqing in the People's Republic of China. It has an area of ​​2,958 km². In the 2000 and 2010 censuses, Wushan had 571,959 and 495,072 residents, respectively. Wushan (巫山; Pinyin: Wūshān) is located within the district at the mouth of the Daning River in the Yangtze .

The old town, whose history dates back to the Eastern Zhou dynasty , was abandoned and flooded as part of the Three Gorges Dam project. The residents were relocated to the higher-lying new foundations of the place. The entrance to the Wu Gorge ( Chinese  巫峽  /  巫峡 , Pinyin Wū Xiá  - " Witches Gorge "), the middle of the three gorges along the Yangtze River, begins at Wushan .

Wushan village (2013)

The Wushan Bridge crosses the Yangtze River in the immediate vicinity . With a span of 460 m, it is one of the world's largest arch bridges . It is a so-called CFST bridge , a tubular steel arch bridge filled with concrete for road traffic.

Approx. 20 km south of Wushan, at the Longgupo Cave (Longgupo yizhi 龙骨 坡 遗址), is an important archaeological site. Among other things, fossils from the early Pleistocene were discovered there and initially assigned to a new subordination of Homo erectus , the "Homo erectus wushanensis" or Wushan man ( 巫山 人 , Wushan ren , English Wushan Man ). In the meantime, however, it is assumed that these are fossil remains of an extinct species of ape. The site has been on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China since 1996 (4-1) .

To the north of Wushan are the "Three Little Gorges" in the Daning River. Some of them are considered more impressive than the great gorges of the Yangtze. From Wushan they are used by smaller ships. Individual hanging coffins can be seen in the high and very close together rock walls . They are based on a funeral custom of the Ba culture .

Web links

• Official website ( Memento of July 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
• Small (Lesser) Three Gorges in Daning River, Wushan

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Data from Chongqing Statistics at Geohive
2. ↑ Travel China Guide , accessed October 1, 2013
3. ^ Russell L. Ciochon : The mystery ape of Pleistocene Asia. In: Nature. Volume 459, 2009, pp. 910-911, doi: 10.1038 / 459910a
4. ↑ Baedeker Travel Guide China , 2006, ISBN 3829711093

Coordinates: 31 ° 5 '  N , 109 ° 53'  E