Shangluo City

Shangluo (商洛; Shāngluò in Chinese pinyin) is a prefecture-level city located in southeast of Shaanxi Province. Literally, Shang refers to Shang Mountain on the south bank of Dan River and Luo refers to Luo River. Hence, it’s name Shangluo. Administering one district, seven counties, 122 towns and four street offices, it covers an area of 19,292 sq.km. (7,449 sq. mi.) and has a population of 2.44 million up till the end of 2010 which include nineteen minorities. The location of the city government is 110 km. (68 mi.) away from the provincial capital city Xi’an.

Shangluo is rich in tourism resources including nature and human landscape, cultural relics and historical sites. At present, there are some 1,200 ancient ruins and architecture, twenty of which are under provincial or national protection. The Paleolithic sites discovered in Luonan was rated as one of the ten greatest national archeological discoveries in 1997. Besides, Sihao tomb built in Han Dynasty, Confucious’ temple of Sui Dynasty, Fengyang Tower of Tang Dynasty and town god’s temple of Ming Dynasty are all hot tourist attractions in Shangluo. Besides, the fascinating Zhashui Karst Cave, located in Zhashui county is famous far and near for its unique karst view and enchanting landscape.

Qinqiang opera is representative of Shangluo’s opera culture and was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage by the State Council on 20 May, 2006 together with Shangluo flower and drum opera, another characteristic form of opera art in China. Besides, Shangluo Daoqing drama, originated from the chanting tunes of Taoists is now a popular folk performance in this city. Another amazing type of drama is Shangluojingbanshu (商洛静板书) which combines raping, playing and beating together and is performed by one people holding six kinds of musical instruments.

Speaking of Shangluo, we cannot afford to miss the delicious local food and snacks such as Shangluo white and black hand-made thick noodles (商洛黑白擀面皮), glutinous rice cake (商州糍粑), Zhen’an bacon (镇安腊肉) and dried persimmon produced in Xiaoyi Town. Besides, local specialties like Danfeng wine, Shangnan tea, Chinese chestnut and walnut all make good gifts if you want to bring something back home in memory of your trip in Shangluo.