The lake is in Pingluo
A steel swan marks the gate. Past it, the water lies open against the dunes, reed beds follow the shore, and a bird reserve occupies the wetland. The gate reads Ningxia Shahu Ecological Tourism Area, a national 5A scenic area at 石嘴山市平罗县沙湖旅游区 in Pingluo County, Shizuishan. The regional A-level list rated it on 8 May 2007 under Shizuishan.
The site spans 80.10 square kilometres, with more than 20 square kilometres of desert beside more than 40 of water, and Yinchuan 42 kilometres away. That distance does not move the lake out of Pingluo. Sand, water, reeds, birds, fish, distant mountains, and lotus are the seven resources named together. Inside the gate, a wetland museum and a collection of Mao badges sit among the indoor displays. A community named Shahu in Yao Fu Town, Pingluo County, shares the name on the civil register with the scenic address. The community line does not trace the edge of those 80.10 square kilometres, and no township is named for the gate itself.
Two totals for the birds
Bird Island lies in the wetland east of the lake. Two bird totals stand side by side in the same introduction: 178 species in 44 families and 17 orders, with more than 1.5 million birds; and more than a million migratory birds. Neither total names a survey year or a method. Five first-class protected species are listed: great bustard, scaly-sided merganser, black stork, white-tailed eagle, and golden eagle. Twenty-one second-class species follow, among them whooper swan, tundra swan, and mandarin duck.
Dunes already line the shore where these counts attach. Sand, water, reeds, and birds are four of the seven resources named for the lake; fish, distant mountains, and lotus are the other three. The species list and both totals are the bird inventory kept here.
A lake in a coal city
Shizuishan was the first coal industrial base the state built in Ningxia after 1949, and Shahu is this prefecture's 5A site—lake water set against the dunes in Pingluo County.
Pingluo County covers 2,634 square kilometres and 13 townships. The county government is in Chengguan Town. At the end of 2023 the resident population was about 273,900. Water beside desert, reeds along the shore, a bird island in the wetland to the east: the lake is one address inside that county. Yinchuan is 42 kilometres away, and the scenic listing remains Shizuishan's.