Xianju National Park () is a

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

Xianju County Xianju County ( Tai-chow dialect: Sin-kü Yön) is a county of Zhejiang, China. It is under the administration of the Taizhou city. It is the location of Shenxianju, a geological site protected by the Chinese government. Xianju is an economicall ...

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

, China. It lies between the Kuocang Mountains () and Dalei Mountain () in southeastern Zhejiang province. It shrouded by the cloud and mist all the year around. It covers an area of .

Name

Xianju has magnificent

spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season) Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...

waterfall A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in several wa ...

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ...

s and

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

s, as well as layer upon layer of peaks immersed in mist. As a splendid work of nature, the beautiful place is just like a fairland on earth, so local people call it "Xianju", meaning a residence where the immortals live.

Natural history

The volcanic rock landform of Xianju National Park was shaped 120 million years ago. With the

Pacific Plate The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At , it is the largest tectonic plate. The plate first came into existence 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix, and Iza ...

diving beneath the

Eurasia Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...

, volcanoes in the coastal area of southeastern China erupted on a large scale. Between two eruptions, there wasn't new lava reaching the crater. Thus, in the weathering process, the crater gradually collapsed into a bowl-shaped pit and then became a lake with more and more water retained in it. After that, volcanoes got active and volcanic rock started to build up again. The volcanic eruptions brought very thick layers of volcanic rock. In the later stage, the

Earth's crust Earth's crust is Earth's thin outer shell of rock, referring to less than 1% of Earth's radius and volume. It is the top component of the lithosphere, a division of Earth's layers that includes the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The ...

rose and the exposed surface was eroded. With the increase in the erosion degree, the Earth's surface became a combination of various geomorphic types, including scabland, screen-shaped cliffs, door-shaped rock, pillar peaks and so on. In June 1924,

Ren-Chang Ching Ren-Chang Ching (; 15 February 1898 – 22 July 1986), courtesy name Zinong, was a Chinese botanist who specialised in ferns. Life and work Ren-Chang Ching was a Chinese botanist and pteridologist who made significant collections of plants from ...

found longleaf torreya in Xianju. He collected a specimen and took it to the

Arnold Arboretum The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is a botanical research institution and free public park, located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1872, it is the oldest public arboretum in N ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. In 1925 he named the tree after his academic supervisor, John George Jack. In March 2014, it began to build a national park and completed in November 2015.

Geology

In the park, there is the most typical and complete geomorphic system of rhyolitic mountainous land. In terms of volcanic geology and petrology, the region is of great scientific value. The volcanic rock is acidic in the park. Its silicon dioxide content is over 66%. The park has 101 major geological relics and 24 water views. In the geomorphic landscape of Xianju National Park, Fanzheng Rock is one of the iconic pillar peaks. With the height of and the diameter of , it towers aloft on a mountain which is more than high. Its flat top like a huge steamer, the mist hazing the peak, is just like the steam coming from the rice steamer, that's why the peak is called Fanzheng Rock ().

Fauna and Flora

The park is designated as a wildlife preserve. There are strict regulations on the rocks, plants, animals and birds from the park. It has a forest coverage rate of over 93%. The park has well-preserved evergreen broad-leaved forests. Within the boundaries of the park, the following number of species are known to live: 322 species of

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...

s (of them, there are 26 species under class II national protection, such as

pangolin Pangolins, sometimes known as scaly anteaters, are mammals of the order Pholidota (, from Ancient Greek ϕολιδωτός – "clad in scales"). The one extant family, the Manidae, has three genera: '' Manis'', '' Phataginus'', and '' Smut ...

long-tailed goral The long-tailed goral or Amur goral (''Naemorhedus caudatus'') is a species of ungulate of the family Bovidae found in the mountains of eastern and northern Asia, including Russia, China, and Korea. A population of this species exists in the Kore ...

, reeves,

sumatran serow The Sumatran serow (''Capricornis sumatraensis sumatraensis''), also known as the southern serow, is a subspecies of the mainland serow native to mountain forests in the Thai-Malay Peninsula and on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It was previo ...

, black muntjac,

silver pheasant The silver pheasant (''Lophura nycthemera'') is a species of pheasant found in forests, mainly in mountains, of mainland Southeast Asia and eastern and southern China, with an introduced population on Victoria Island in Nahuel Huapi Lake, Neu ...

masked palm civet The masked palm civet (''Paguma larvata''), also called the gem-faced civet, is a palm civet species native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It has been listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List since 2008 as it occurs in many p ...

and

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...

), 1,505 species of

vascular plant Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...

s (of them, there are 14 species under class I and II national protection, such as ''Taxus chinensis'' var. ''mairei'' and longleaf torreya), 57 species of

fern A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes except t ...

s, 18 species of

gymnosperm The gymnosperms ( lit. revealed seeds) are a group of seed-producing plants that includes conifers, cycads, ''Ginkgo'', and gnetophytes, forming the clade Gymnospermae. The term ''gymnosperm'' comes from the composite word in el, γυμνό� ...

s, and 1,365 species of

angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

River

Yong'an River (), known as the mother river of Xianju County, originates from Heaven's Tip () at an altitude of . The long river has 38 tributaries of different sizes in the Xianju County, those tributaries flow into the Yong'an River from the south and north.

Culture

In October 2018, Xianju National Park served as a shooting location for the CCTV travel documentary series '' Homeland, Dreamland''.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Xianju National Park National parks of China Protected areas established in 2015 Tourist attractions in Taizhou, Zhejiang Geography of Zhejiang 2015 establishments in China