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Chinese Name: 红旗渠
English Name: Red Flag Canal; Hong Qi Qu; Hongqi Canal
Location: Anyang, Henan
Type: Ancient culture and art
Rating Level: AAAAA (5A)
Brief Introduction
The Red Flag Canal, located in Anyang City 安阳, Henan Province 河南, is a water conservancy project built by the Linzhou 林州市 people from the Taihang 太行山 mountainside to divert Zhuozhang River 浊漳河 into the Linzhou under extremely difficult conditions in the 1960s, known as the “artificial river”.
The Red Flag Canal, with a total length of 1500 kilometers, a great project involving nearly 100000 people and taking nearly 10 years to build, is a “New China Miracle”, a national AAAAA tourist attraction, a national key cultural relics protection unit, and honored as “the eighth wonder of the world”.
The Red Flag Canal Project was started in February 1960, and the auxiliary works of the branch canal were completed in July 1969, which lasted nearly ten years. The project has leveled 1250 mountain heads, erected 151 aqueducts, excavated 211 tunnels, built 12408 buildings, excavated 22.25 million cubic meters of earth and stone, and the total length of the Red Flag Canal is 70.6 kilometers.
What are worth visiting and seeing？
Background of construction
The Red Flag Canal is an artificially constructed irrigation canal. Located in Linzhou City, Anyang, Henan Province, Linzhou is at the junction of Henan Province and Shanxi Province 山西. It has suffered from severe drought and water shortages throughout history. According to historical records, from the first year of the Ming Dynasty (1436) to the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, there were 514 spring and autumn periods. More than 100 natural disasters occurred in Linxian County, and more than 30 crops were destroyed by drought. Sometimes the drought lasts for years, the rivers and wells are dry, and the crops are not harvested.
On October 10, 1959, the County Party Committee of Linxian County held a meeting and decided to divert the water from the Zhuozhang River to Linxian County. In April 1966, three main canals were completed at the same time. In 1969, the supporting construction of the trunk, branch was completed. So far, the irrigation system with the Red Flag Canal as the main body has basically taken shape. The effective irrigation area of irrigation area reached 540000 mu(亩, a Chinese unit of measurement), and the project was completed in July.
Attractions
To cross the Red Flag Canal from the steep cliff of Langya Mountain 狼牙山, a tunnel of more than 600 meters long must be drilled. The Youth Cave 青年洞 is the throat project of the Red Flag Canal. It is as hard as steel quartz sand. One hammer can only leave a spot. It is precisely under spiritual support like the foolish man moving the mountain that the migrant workers used more than a year to drill through the cave. As the commandos participating in the tunneling are outstanding young people drawn from the migrant workers in the county, the tunnel is named Youth Cave.
Fenshuiyuan Scenic Area 分水苑景区 is a garden-style scenic spot, and it is also the place where the main canal of the Hongqi Canal is divided into three main canals. It is 18km away from the urban area and is located at the concave waist between the Datuo Ridges 大驼岭 and Mao’er Ridges 猫儿岭, which branch eastward from the north of Linlu Mountain 林虑山. The scenic spots here are arranged in an orderly and well-planned way, surrounded by green cypresses and rushing canals. It can be said that the landscape is beautiful and refreshing.
Luosi Pond 络丝潭 is located about 1km west of the Youth Cave, also known as “Overpass Broken”. The Luosi Pond is named after its deep pool and silk, and also because the Zhuozhang River has “nine gorges and eighteen sections”. This is a large section of water, and there is a canyon cable bridge connecting Henan and Hebei, so it is called the “overpass section”.
Here is the “Small Three Gorges”, a famous scenic spot on the Zhang River. You can enjoy the scenery in the pond by boat; There is a mysterious “Holy Tortoise Cave 神龟洞”, where you can enjoy the beautiful legend of the turtle saving the people; There are also such historic sites as the “Iron Chain Bridge” hanging in the sky. In winter, there are tens of meters of ice curtains hanging on the north and south banks of the river, writing a history of the formation of the rocks in Luositan 1 billion years ago.
