The Hill Behind the Old City

The hill is 285 metres high, the northern spur of Mount Tai, and it covers 164.88 hectares in the southern suburbs of Jinan. It has been called Lishan and Shunshan as well, because legend holds that Shun ploughed at its foot and a shrine to him once stood there; the name Shun's Ploughing Mountain follows from that story. The name everyone uses came later. In the Sui Kaihuang era, between 581 and 600, Buddhism was flourishing and thousands of small figures were carved into the rock following the slope of the hill. From the quantity came the name: the Thousand Buddha Mountain. The temple at the foot was rebuilt in the Tang Zhenguan era, between 627 and 649, and renamed Xingguo Chan Temple. It is one of Jinan's three great sights and a national AAAA scenic area.

The reason to climb is the view north. From Qianfoshan you look across the city to the Yellow River, and to a line of low peaks that punctuate the plain: Huabuzhu Hill, also called Hua Hill, Queshan, Kuangshan and Biaoshan. Together with the river they make the old local composition known as one line of the long river and nine points of Qi smoke, and there is a memorial arch on the hillside carrying that phrase. On the hill are the Wen Chang Pavilion, the Shun shrine, the Yilan Pavilion and the Chan temple. At the foot stands a monument to the martyrs of the 1911 Revolution. This is not a mountain that overawes; it is the ridge that tells a flat city where it is, which is why the old city of Jinan grew up between this hill and the lake.