Yunqiu Mountain and the County Beneath It

Xiangning is the county in the south-west of Linfen, and its land is mountain country. The county covers 2,029 square kilometres at the southern foot of the Lüliang range, the western of the two great ranges that hold the Fen valley, and the ground rises from the river plain into ridges and ravines. Linfen as a whole lies in the south-east of the Loess Plateau, and the soil is the fine, wind-laid earth of that plateau, cut into terraces and deep gullies. Yunqiu Mountain stands in this upland, the mountain above Xiangning, and the land around it is read through the county that contains it.

The county's neighbours describe its position. Yaodu District and Xiangfen County lie to the east, along the Fen; Ji County, where the Yellow River falls at Hukou, lies to the north; and to the west the Yellow River itself is the boundary, with Hancheng and Yichuan in Shaanxi on the far bank. That makes Xiangning a border county in two senses, at the edge of the prefecture and at the edge of the province. The river is the reason. It cuts the plateau into the gorge that separates Shanxi from Shaanxi, and the ridges behind the gorge are the last high ground before the water, which is why the county's western edge is a line drawn by geology as much as by government.

Xiangning is administered from Changning town, at 99 Yingxu Street. The census of 1 November 2020 counted 206,892 residents in the county, a figure that has to be read against its 2,029 square kilometres: this is a county of small settlements and long distances, where the seat is a modest town rather than a city. The mountain above it is the county's best-known name, and the two are usually spoken of together, as if the peak stood for the whole district. What the records give is the county: its borders, its seat, its population and its position at the southern foot of the Lüliang range.