Nanyang

About Nanyang

Nanyang, in the southwest corner of Henan, has a habit of producing famous names. The Han dynasty astronomer Zhang Heng, inventor of an early seismoscope, came from this area, as did the physician Zhang Zhongjing, honoured across China as the Medical Sage. Zhuge Liang, the strategist of the Three Kingdoms, wrote that he had been a farmer in Nanyang before Liu Bei came calling, and the city has honoured him for centuries at Wolong Hill.

During the Han era this basin between the Funiu and Tongbai mountains was an important centre of iron-making and trade, and the stone reliefs carved for its tombs are some of the finest Han art anywhere. Later governors left behind one of the best-preserved Qing yamen in the country, and the jade carvers working stone from nearby Dushan Mountain keep an old craft alive.

The wider prefecture is huge and varied. The forests of Baotianman rise to the northwest, Xixia County is famous for its fossil dinosaur eggs, and the blue Danjiangkou Reservoir on the western edge feeds the middle route of China's South-North Water Transfer Project.