Baidicheng and Qutang Gorge
Hilltop Town Above The First Of The Three Gorges, The View Printed On The 10 Yuan Note · Chongqing, Chongqing
A hilltop town above the entrance to the first and shortest of the Three Gorges, and the view printed on the back of the ten-yuan note. Qutang Gorge is only eight kilometres long but the most dramatic of the three: the Yangtze narrows between cliffs that rise more than a thousand metres, squeezing through a gap called the Kui Gate that was once the strategic key to Sichuan. On the bluff above stands Baidicheng, the White Emperor City, a walled compound of temples and halls with a history that runs through Chinese literature - it was here, the histories say, that Liu Bei, the dying king of Shu, entrusted his son and his kingdom to the strategist Zhuge Liang, a scene re-created in painted figures inside the main hall, and here that Li Bai wrote his famous poem about leaving Baidi among the coloured clouds at dawn. Since the Three Gorges dam raised the river, Baidicheng has become an island linked by a footbridge, and the water below is deeper and calmer than in the days when boatmen feared the rapids.
Baidicheng, Fengjie County, Chongqing, Chongqing, Chongqing, China
Daily, gate about 8:30-19:00 with last tickets 17:00 and last entry 17:30; booking required in advance.
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