Mount Cangyan () is a scenic area in

Jingxing County Jingxing County () is a county of Hebei Province, North China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Shijiazhuang, the capital of the province. When King Mu of Zhou King Mu of Zhou (), personal name Ji Man, was the fift ...

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...

Province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, famous for its combination of natural mountain scenery with historical man-made structures. It is located approximately southwest of the provincial capital

Shijiazhuang Shijiazhuang (; ; Mandarin: ), formerly known as Shimen and romanized as Shihkiachwang, is the capital and most populous city of China’s North China's Hebei Province. Administratively a prefecture-level city, it is about southwest of Beijin ...

and close to the border with

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

Province.

Geography

Mount Cangyan forms the eastern tip of the Taihang Mountain Range (), its tallest peak has an altitude of . The scenic area covers 63 square kilometres (180 square kilometres according to other counts). The vegetation of the area is a forest of

cypress Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs of northern temperate regions that belong to the family Cupressaceae. The word ''cypress'' is derived from Old French ''cipres'', which was imported from Latin ''cypressus'', the ...

and blue sandalwood (''Pteroceltis tatarinowii'') trees.

History

The most famous building complex on Mount Cangyan is the ''Fortune Celebration Temple'' (). It was first erected during the

Sui Dynasty The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and layi ...

(late 6th to early 7th century) and is said to have been the place where Princess Nan Yang, the daughter of the Sui Emperor

Yang Yang may refer to: * Yang, in yin and yang, one half of the two symbolic polarities in Chinese philosophy * Korean yang, former unit of currency of Korea from 1892 to 1902 * YANG, a data modeling language for the NETCONF network configuration pr ...

, practiced

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

. The various structures of the Fortune Celebration Temple (the Tablets House, the Hall of the Heavenly Kings, the Hall of the Giant Buddha, the Bridge-Tower Hall, the Buddhist Canon Depository) are well integrated into the mountain topography. The central landmark of the complex is the ''Bridge-Tower Hall'' (). As the name suggests, it is supported by a stone arch bridge spanning a narrow gorge. The bridge has a span of and stands above ground, it is constructed from 365 stone blocks. Under the bridge a stone staircase with more than 360 steps leads up to the summit.

Use in cinema

The first known use of the setting in cinema was in the award-winning 1954 film ''

Letter with Feather ''Leather with Feather'' () (also known as ''Urgent Letter'') is a 1954 Chinese film directed by Shi Hui (actor), Shi Hui and written by the playwright and filmmaker, Zhang Junxiang. A war film that was targeted at Children's film, children, ''Let ...

''. The 1986 Chinese TV series ''

Journey to the West ''Journey to the West'' () is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the greatest Classic Chinese Novels, and has been described as arguably the most popu ...

'' brought the mountain to the attention of Chinese audiences. It achieved equal fame in the West when it was used as a setting for the 2000 film ''

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' is a 2000 wuxia film directed by Ang Lee and written for the screen by Wang Hui-ling, James Schamus, and Tsai Kuo-jung . The film features a cast of actors of Chinese people, Chinese ethnicity, including Ch ...

'', which fictionally located it within the

Wudang Mountains The Wudang Mountains () consist of a mountain range in the northwestern part of Hubei, China, just south of Shiyan. They are home to a famous complex of Taoist temples and monasteries associated with the Lord of the North, Xuantian Shangdi. The ...

. It was also used in the opening sequence of '' The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor'' as well as lesser known Chinese films such as ''

The Butterfly Lovers The Butterfly Lovers is a Chinese legend of a tragic love story of a pair of lovers, Liang Shanbo () and Zhu Yingtai (), whose names form the title of the story. The title is often abbreviated to Liang Zhu (). The story was selected as one o ...

'' and '' Mulan: Rise of a Warrior''.

External links

travelchinaguide
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cangyan Mountains of Hebei Cangyan Shan Tourist attractions in Hebei Shijiazhuang