Qingyang, known as Longdong, lies in eastern Gansu, where loess plateau and deep gullies shape the central and southern landscape. Dongzhi Yuan covers about 960 square kilometres and averages 1,421 metres in elevation, according to the city’s geography page. A 2025 protection ordinance defines it as the loess table centred on urban Xifeng and extending into named parts of Qingcheng, Heshui and Ning counties. The rules address water and soil erosion through measures on the table surface, gully heads, slopes and channels. They also identify local farming heritage and crafts for continued protection.
From the journal
Qingyang Sachets: Embroidery on the loess tableland
On Dongzhi Yuan, Qingyang’s broad loess tableland, a small festival sachet carries a varied local embroidery tradition. Its forms and stitches are recorded in China’s national intangible-heritage catalogue.
In the same city · Qingyang ↗The broad tableland above the gullies
Nanzuo and the long history of cultivation
The Nanzuo settlement offers evidence of an early agricultural society in eastern Gansu. Archaeologist Chen Guoke dates its main period to roughly 5,200–4,600 years ago and describes three rings of ditches around a large settlement. Within the core are nine rammed-earth platforms; building F1 had an interior area of about 630 square metres. Excavations recovered abundant carbonized rice along with pottery, stone and bone objects. Chen interprets the scale and layout as signs of a high-ranking central settlement. The Dongzhi Yuan ordinance includes Nanzuo among the immovable cultural relics within the protected tableland area.
A festival sachet shaped by many stitches
Qingyang sachet embroidery entered China’s first national intangible-heritage list in 2006. The catalogue records the local name chuchu and describes a Dragon Boat Festival cloth sachet that can be drawn closed at the mouth. It distinguishes several techniques: hidden-needle work forms a three-dimensional body; thread-coil work winds coloured thread into a five-cornered zongzi shape; and flat embroidery combines multiple stitch types. The catalogue documents nearly 400 three-dimensional styles and a wide vocabulary of named stitches. It says the craft’s origin cannot be dated, and preserves a Qibo medicine-bag account as a local story. The 2025 ordinance also lists Qingyang sachet embroidery among traditions to carry forward across Dongzhi Yuan.
