China is often viewed as a very mystical country and those on a China tour will have many world-famous attractions on their itinerary.
Well-known wonders such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City are often right at the top of that list, but a new report from the National Holiday Tourism Office has revealed that scenic spots are becoming more popular with overseas tourists.
The report found that on the fifth day of the week-long Spring Festival, 251,300 sightseers visited 37 major scenic resorts across the Shanxi Province – a figure which is 20 per cent higher than the corresponding number for last year.
Visitors to the city’s Pingle Ancient Town increased 22.5 per cent year-on-year, while more than 10,000 tourists visited the resort of Mount Qingcheng – an increase of 54.41 per cent.
The office added that around 774,660 passengers boarded flights to travel to different regions of the country on the same day.
One scenic attraction that is gaining year-round popularity is the Lingqu Canal.
Sometime before 210 BC, the first Qin emperor ordered one of his legions to construct a waterway that would allow his army to travel via boat all the way to the deep south of China.
The canal was built to join China’s two great rivers, the Yangtze and the Pearl, and allowed China to expand its territory more than 2,000 years ago.
“Of the three big building projects of the Qin Dynasty, the Great Wall was purely military and Dujiangyan in Sichuan province was for civilian use, but Lingqu was built for military purposes and evolved into a civilian waterway,” states Liu Jianxin, chairman of the Lingqu Historical Cultural Research Society.
A seven-metre high black stone runs alongside the waterway, which is emblazoned with mystical inscriptions and its origins have so far remained a mystery to modern science.