Taipinggou: Forest Protection Along the Amur

Taipinggou lies in Luobei County, where the forested foothills of the Xiaoxing’anling meet the Amur borderland. Hegang’s environmental page lists Taipinggou among the region’s nature reserves, while local reporting describes conifer and broadleaf trees growing together there. The reserve is also home to diverse wildlife; the 2025 report says infrared cameras have recorded Amur tiger activity. That record is a sign of habitat use, not a promise of sightings. It makes the landscape’s protection more than a scenic label: the forest is a functioning habitat whose value includes species that visitors may never see.

The nearby Longjiang Three Gorges are part of the same dramatic river country, but Taipinggou’s protected area also contains its own narrow valleys. The local scenic-area description identifies Xinglong Gorge as a five-kilometre-long ravine, about 400 metres deep, with forest, streams and waterfalls. It lists a network of forest boardwalks, stone steps and floating bridges through the valley. Those are specific built ways of moving through a difficult landscape, allowing people to follow a route while the surrounding slopes remain wooded. As with any protected place, the trail is only one part of the forest, not a measure of its whole extent.

Taipinggou’s scenic district also includes the Gold Town resort, built around two periods of gold mining in the late Qing and mid-Republican eras, according to the county page. Its visitor areas include a history exhibition, a performance plaza and a gold-panning experience. Nearby, Yuntiange is a 24-metre steel observation tower that also serves forestry staff as a fire lookout. It gives a high view across the river and gorge landscape, linking the practical work of watching a forest with the visitor’s view. Taipinggou’s cultural history and nature reserve are distinct, but they occupy the same borderland: a forest shaped by human use and modern conservation.