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Introducing Ānhuī
If you only have time for one province, Ānhuī should top your list. It may be poor – supplying the lion’s share of the country’s ayi and baomu (domestic helpers) – but its landscape is dramatic and beautiful in equal measure, and Wǎnnán – as the southern part of Ānhuī is called – is home to the lovely Huīzhōu culture that melds over the border with northeastern Jiāngxī. With little of the manic development and breakneck urgency that grips the rest of China, the province is an alluring alternative to the mantle of noise and construction dust cloaking other provinces.
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Cut by the Yangzi River (Cháng Jiāng), which occasionally floods the low plains, Ānhuī has conveniently managed to cram all its highlight sights into a small and easily navigable area in the deep provincial south. It is to this well-watered mountainous region, which contrasts spectacularly with the arid northern plains abutting Hénán and Shāndōng, that travellers naturally gravitate.
China’s most famous peak – Huáng Shān – has yielded an almost equally high mountain of coffee-table books dedicated to its mist-wreathed panoramas. Famed for its other-worldly fogs and looming granite formations, Huáng Shān’s natural beauty is complemented by the sacred mountain aura of nearby Buddhist Jiǔhuá Shān, one of China’s holiest places of pilgrimage.
The gorgeous Huīzhōu villages and architecture of Yīxiàn and Shèxiàn fully round out the picture. Visitors basing themselves in Túnxī can use the town as a convenient launching pad for grasping the Taoist secrets of Qíyún Shān and uncovering the charms of Hóngcūn, Xīdì, Shèxiàn and other delightful villages that characterise the region.
History
The provincial borders of Ānhuī were defined by the Qing government and, except for a few changes to the boundary with Jiāngsū, have remained unchanged. Northern Ānhuī forms part of the North China Plain, where the Han Chinese settled in large numbers during the Han dynasty. The Yangzi River cuts through the southern quarter of Ānhuī, and the area south of the river was not settled until the 7th and 8th centuries.
Last updated: Feb 17, 2009
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