Three side gorges off the main channel

The Little Three Gorges are not on the Yangtze. They are the gorges of the Daning River where it crosses Wushan County: Longmen, Bawu and Dicui. The Daning is the largest tributary in the Three Gorges basin and a first-level tributary of the upper Yangtze, anciently called Changjiang and also known as Wuxi. It rises in the Zhongnan Mountains at Pingli in Shaanxi and runs south through Wuxi and Wushan to the Yangtze, taking the Madu River and other streams on the way. Wushan stands at its mouth, which is why boats turn into the side gorges from the town landing.

Wushan is known for the Little Three Gorges on the nearby Daning, and the county's tourism was built on them. In 1991 the Three Gorges and the Wushan Little Three Gorges were both named among China's forty best tourist places; in 2000 the area was among the first national 4A scenic areas. The reservoir changed the product. The Little Three Gorges are no longer as deep or as spectacular as they once were, and the county's own account says visitor activity is not what it was before the flooding of the first decade of the century. It now also sells a Lesser Little Three Gorges further up the same water.

Dachang is one of the county's towns, and its old town is described as a pocket city: a call from the four gates can be heard across it and one lamp lights the whole town. That is a description of a walled settlement small enough to be held in one glance, which is what a river town on a shelf above the water had to be. The county's sites also include the Longgupo site, a national key cultural relic unit. Since 2019 there has been an airport, and since 2022 a high-speed rail station, so the side gorges can be reached from outside as easily as from the river.