Leshan, Sichuan Province, China

🇨🇳 Leshan, formerly known as Jiading or Jiazhou, is a prefecture-level city located at the confluence of the Dadu and Min rivers in Sichuan Province, China. Leshan is located on the south-western fringe of the Sichuan Basin in southern Sichuan, about 120 km (75 mi) from Chengdu. The built-up (or metro) area is comprised of the Shizhong, Wutongqiao, Shawan and Jinkouhe districts.

Leshan is a famous historical and cultural city with the reputation of "Begonia Fragrance Country". It is the first open-door city, model green city, excellent tourist city, national garden city and national health city. Leshan has three world-class heritage sites - world natural and cultural heritage Emei Mountain and Leshan Buddha, world irrigation project heritage Dongfengyan and so on.

History

The area of present day Leshan was the seat of historical Jiading city, which the historical Jiading city covered not entirely the same area with modern day Leshan city. Some of the area of Leshan county, was ceded to Emeishan city in 1958. In 1978, Leshan as a county-level city was formed. In 1985, the Leshan prefecture-level city was formed, which Emeishan and other county level cities were under the administration of Leshan. Before 1978, Leshan county-level city had Shizhong (means city centre), Wutongqiao (literally 5-"tong"-bridge) and Shawan (literally sand bay) three districts. The establishment of Leshan prefecture-level city, also saw the disestablishment of Leshan Dìqū, an administrative area that supervisee Leshan, as well as other county-level cities and counties.

Xinchang town, Jiading city [sic], was known for late Qing uprising against the government.

Geography Leshan City is located in central Sichuan Province, south-west of the Sichuan Basin. Meishan borders on the north, Zigong and Yibin in the east, Liangshan in the south, and Ya'an in the west.Leshan city is located in the transition zone from Sichuan basin to south-west mountainous area, the overall trend is high in south-west, low in north-east, with wide difference in height.Landforms are mountainous, hilly, Pingba three types, mainly mountainous.

Tourist attractions In 1996, the Mount Emei Scenic Area, including the Leshan Giant Buddha, the largest stone-carved buddha in the world, which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Next door to the Leshan Giant Buddha is the Oriental Buddha Park, a privately run cultural theme park, featuring thousands of reproductions of Buddha statues and Buddhist themed carvings.

Mount Emei is located within the county-level city of Emeishan, which is under the administrative jurisdiction of Leshan.

The ancestral home of Chinese writer, academic and politician Guo Moruo is preserved in the Shawan District of Leshan.

Dialect The Leshan dialect, part of the Southern linguistic system, is very different from the dialects of other cities in the province of Sichuan, which belong to the Northern system. Some researchers say the pronunciation of Leshan dialect represents an archaic form of Chinese pronunciation.

Food Falling into the Sichuan cuisine family, Leshan is noted for its food culture in that it has all the street food from its surrounding areas, which has made it the one-stop street food city.

Transport There are Chengdu–Mianyang–Leshan intercity railway and Chengdu–Guiyang high-speed railway serving Leshan.

The Chengdu-Leshan Freeway with a total length of 160 kilometers, was finished on January 14, 2000. This Freeway has since become very important to the city's development.

Education Leshan Normal University (乐山师范学院) and Leshan Vocational & Technical College (乐山职业技术学院) are two government-fund colleges in the city.

The Engineering&Technical College of Chengdu University of Technology (成都理工大学工程技术学院) is a non-government college, which was established in 2003.