Yancheng 盐城Yánchéng

About Yancheng

Yancheng, whose name means 'salt city', has made sea salt since the Han dynasty, a history told at the China Sea Salt Museum. Its Yellow Sea tidal flats and reed beds, where red-crowned cranes winter, became part of a UNESCO World Heritage site for migratory birds in 2019, and at Dafeng the milu, or Père David's deer, roam a reserve restocked with 39 animals from British zoos in 1986. In spring the tulip fields of the Dutch Flower Sea draw crowds.

What to eat in Yancheng

• Dongtai fish soup noodles (东台鱼汤面)

Listed sites in Yancheng

27 sites in Yancheng are on the official lists. Those with a page of their own link to it; the rest open as cards on the map.

• Dafeng Milu (Père David's Deer) Park 中华麋鹿园 5A scenic area · on the map
  The visitor area of the Dafeng Milu National Nature Reserve on the Yellow Sea coast, where Père David's deer (milu), which had died out in China, were brought back in 1986 with 39 animals from British zoos; the reserve now holds the world's largest wild population of the species.
• Anfeng Ancient Town 安丰古镇 4A scenic area · on the map
  Anfeng grew rich as the leading salt-producing town of the old Huainan salt fields, drawing Huizhou salt merchants who built along a long street beside the Chuanchang canal, and it was named a China Historical and Cultural Town in 2007.
• Caofangzi (Grass House) Park 草房子乐园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A rural theme park of about 350 mu in Zhouhuo village, the home village of children's author Cao Wenxuan, winner of the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award, planned around the site of the original straw-roofed houses behind his novel Caofangzi (The Grass House).
• China Water Margin Park & Shi Nai'an Memorial Hall 中华水浒园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A themed park in Baiju town built around the Shi Nai'an Memorial Hall, which presents Baiju as the home town of Shi Nai'an, the writer traditionally credited with the classic novel Water Margin (the claim is shared with neighbouring Xinghua).
• Dafeng Dream Maze 梦幻迷宫 4A scenic area · on the map
  A hedge-maze park in the countryside of Caoyan town that Guinness World Records lists as the largest permanent hedge maze, measured at 35,596.74 m² in June 2018, with about 9.5 km of paths.
• Dafeng Port Ocean World 大丰港海洋世界 4A scenic area · on the map
  An ocean-themed family attraction in the marine-industry park near Dafeng Port, with aquarium halls, marine science exhibits, a tropical plant house and a children's play area.
• Dayangwan Eco-Tourism Area 大洋湾 4A scenic area · on the map
  A large park on the northern edge of Yancheng where the old and new channels of the Yangwan river loop around islands and inlets, laid out with lawns, flower meadows and waterside paths.
• Dazong Lake 大纵湖 4A scenic area · on the map
  A shallow lake of about 28 km² on the border with Xinghua, long admired for its autumn views, whose northern, Yancheng shore is developed as a lakeside resort with a national wetland park.
• Dutch Flower Sea 荷兰花海 4A scenic area · on the map
  A large flower park in Xinfeng town, named in memory of the Dutch water engineer who planned the area's irrigation in 1919, where tulips are grown over thousands of mu and a tulip festival has been held every spring since 2013.
• Huai Opera Town, Jianhu 淮剧小镇 4A scenic area · on the map
  A waterside village quarter of about 350 mu on the edge of the Jiulongkou wetland, renovated and extended in old style as a showcase for Huai opera and Jianhu acrobatics, both national intangible heritage.
• Jinsha Lake, Funing 金沙湖 4A scenic area · on the map
  A lake and wetland resort on the southern edge of Funing town, developed from 2010 around about 10,000 mu of water with reed-fringed islands, and listed as a national water conservancy scenic area.
• Jiulongkou Scenic Area 九龙口 4A scenic area · on the map
  A lake and marsh area in the Lixiahe lowlands where nine natural rivers meet around a small island, giving the name 'Nine Dragons' Mouth'.
• Longgang Peach Blossom Land 龙冈桃花源 4A scenic area · on the map
  An orchard park in Longgang, an old market town west of Yancheng named after the 15-li sand ridge to its north said to resemble a lying dragon.
• Majiadang Wetland 马家荡 4A scenic area · on the map
  Majiadang is a broad expanse of reed marsh, fish ponds and waterways in south-western Funing, counted as the first of the 64 marshes of the Lixiahe lowlands, with villages built along the water.
• Meihuawan Park 梅花湾 4A scenic area · on the map
  A landscaped park on the north-western edge of Dafeng themed on plum blossom, laid out around lakes off a branch of the Doulonggang River with groves of plum, cherry and crabapple among camphor, osmanthus and magnolia trees.
• New Fourth Army Memorial Hall 新四军纪念馆 4A scenic area
  A museum opened in 1986 on Jianjun East Road about the New Fourth Army, the Communist-led army that fought the Japanese in central China and had its headquarters re-established in Yancheng in 1941 after the Wannan Incident.
• Shanghai Sent-Down Youth Memorial Hall, Dafeng 上海知青纪念馆 4A scenic area · on the map
  A museum on Haifeng Farm, one of the state farms run by Shanghai inside Dafeng, recording the tens of thousands of young Shanghai people sent to reclaim the Yellow Sea mudflats in the 1960s and 1970s.
• Sheyang Andersen Fairy Tale Park 安徒生童话乐园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A modern theme park on the edge of Sheyang county town built around Hans Christian Andersen's stories, with four themed zones based on The Little Match Girl, Thumbelina, The Emperor's New Clothes and The Ugly Duckling, rides, themed halls, a castle and a water park.
• Tiaozini Wetland 条子泥 4A scenic area · on the map
  A vast tidal mudflat on the Yellow Sea coast, part of the Migratory Bird Sanctuaries along the Coast of Yellow Sea-Bohai Gulf of China World Heritage Site since 2019 and a key stopover on the East Asian–Australasian Flyway.
• Xixi Tianxianyuan Scenic Area & Haichunxuan Pagoda 西溪天仙缘 4A scenic area · National heritage site · on the map
  Xixi, on the western edge of Dongtai, was a salt-making centre from the Han dynasty and is linked with the folk legend of Dong Yong and the Seventh Fairy, a national intangible heritage item.
• Xixin Temple 息心寺 4A scenic area · on the map
  A large Buddhist temple near the Sheyang River, founded in the late Ming dynasty as a small shrine (Zhenlong Temple, later Xixin An), later destroyed and rebuilt from 1993.
• Yancheng Museum 盐城市博物馆 4A scenic area · on the map
  Yancheng's city museum, founded in 1961, moved in 2021 into a new group of buildings in traditional style on Jianjun West Road in the old centre.
• Yancheng Red-crowned Crane Wetland (Yancheng National Nature Reserve) 盐城丹顶鹤湿地 4A scenic area · on the map
  The visitor area of the Jiangsu Yancheng Wetland Rare Birds National Nature Reserve, set up in 1983, a UNESCO biosphere reserve since 1992 and part of the Yellow Sea-Bohai Gulf migratory bird World Heritage Site since 2019.
• Yancheng Sea Salt Historic and Cultural Zone (China Sea Salt Museum) 海盐历史文化风景区 4A scenic area · on the map
  Yancheng, literally 'salt city', tells the story of its salt trade in this zone beside the Chuanchang River, an old salt-transport canal.
• Yellow Sea Coastal National Forest Park 黄海森林公园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A large planted forest on reclaimed coastal land near the Yellow Sea, begun in 1965 as the Dongtai state forest farm and made a national forest park in 2015.
• Former Headquarters of the Reformed New Fourth Army (Taishan Temple) 新四军重建军部旧址 National heritage site · on the map
  After the Wannan Incident of January 1941, when Chiang Kai-shek ordered the New Fourth Army disbanded, the Communist leadership re-established the army's headquarters here in Taishan (Dongyue) Temple, a Ming-dynasty temple rebuilt in 1582.
• Yanfu Region Anti-Japanese Martyrs' Memorial Tower 盐阜区抗日阵亡将士纪念塔 National heritage site · on the map
  A memorial tower about 20 m high built in 1943 at Lupu to honour New Fourth Army soldiers and cadres killed in the Yanfu (Yancheng–Funing) anti-Japanese base area; local people supplied the bricks and labour, and a cast-iron statue of a soldier stands on top.

On the map

Open Yancheng on the illustrated map to see its outline, its places and listed sites together, and to add them to a trip.

Learn more

• Wikipedia
• Official website
• Wikipedia (Chinese)