Three limestone spans on one river, and the hollows between them
How the Yangshui River left three bridges standing in succession at Xiannüshan, and why the two collapse hollows between them matter as much as the spans.
Wulong District runs along the lower Wu River in south-eastern Chongqing, with Guizhou at its southern border, and covers 2,901.3 square kilometres. It was a county until November 2016, when it became a district. Its economy now rests on tourism and modern agriculture rather than extraction: the district government gave up developing the bauxite along the Wu River in order to protect the river's environment and ecology. The limestone inside its borders is protected as part of the UNESCO South China Karst World Heritage Site, and the district has become one of the fastest-growing in south-eastern Chongqing. National Highway 319, cut into the cliff face in places, is still the old road through it.
How the Yangshui River left three bridges standing in succession at Xiannüshan, and why the two collapse hollows between them matter as much as the spans.
Three limestone spans in succession over the Yangshui River, with two collapse hollows between them.
A 2,846-metre river cave found by farmers in 1993, with more than 70 kinds of deposit and a shaft field above it.
The rift inside the Three Natural Bridges conservation area, the other half of the karst vocabulary of Wulong.
A national forest park and holiday resort at 2,033 metres on the Wuling range, above the north bank of the Wu River.