It is worth being clear about the first thing: Fairy Lake is man-made. The reservoir was formed in 1964 by impounding the Yuan River at Jiangkou, and the Yuan still runs west to east through the Xinyu area. The lake belongs to the national list of key scenic areas and to the AAAA class of scenic sites. The water was raised for a purpose, and the landscape that people photograph today is a result of that decision rather than an accident of nature.
From the journal
A reservoir with a name from a story
Fairy Lake was a dam built across the Yuan River in 1964, and it was given its name from an old book thirty years later.
In the same city · Xinyu ↗What kind of lake it is
Why a weaver girl
The name arrived late. In 1994 the lake was given a name taken from the story of a weaver girl recorded by Gan Bao in the fourth-century Soushen Ji, and the name entered official use in 1995. That is an unusual way to do it: the place had existed for thirty years under a utilitarian name before it was given a story, and the story it was given is a classical one about a woman who comes down from the sky. The lake keeps both: the dam, and the tale that was hung on it.
Three parts of the water
The scenic area divides into three. The eastern part, Wulong Lake, is a maze of bays and islands; the middle part, Zhongshan Gorge, is a canyon landscape; and the third part climbs into the hills. A city is best read through its water, and Xinyu's is the most artificial in Jiangxi, which makes it a useful contrast with Poyang Lake, where the province's largest body of water is entirely natural and entirely seasonal. Xinyu also keeps other names: a memorial to the painter Fu Baoshi, and the long history of iron and steel that made the city.