Things not to be missed in Ya'an

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Editor's note: Ya'an, a prefecture-level city in Sichuan, will host the 2017 Sichuan International Cultural Tourism Festival from June 25 to 30. The city is known as the site of discovery of the word’s first giant panda. It is also the place where artificial tea planting began almost two thousand years ago.

Distinctive culture of Ya'an

Panda culture

Ya’an is the hometown of giant panda. The numbers of giant pandas living in the wild and in captivity are both the world’s highest. The world’s first giant panda was found in Baoxing, Ya’an in 1869 and then introduced to the outside world. The rare animal has conquered the whole world with its charm and is deemed as a peace and friendship messenger. In 2006, Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries - Wolong, Mt Siguniang and Jiajin Mountainsm, half of which are located in Ya’an, was inscribed onto the UNESCO list of world natural cultural heritages. The city is also home to the world’s largest research base of giant panda breeding, the Bifengxia Giant Panda Base.

Tea culture

Ya’an, where artificial tea planting began in 53 BC, is the cradle of tea culture. Beginning in the first year of Emperor Xuanzong’s reign of the Tang Dynasty, tea leaves from Ya’an’s Mengding Mountain was a royal tribute through Qing Dynasty for 1169 years. Historically the start of the ancient Tea-Horse Road, Ya’an is now the world’s most enduring and biggest production base of Tibetan tea. The Mengding Mountain International Tea Cultural Festival takes place here every March.

Han Dynasty culture

Ya’an is rich in Han Dynasty (202 BC to 220 AD) culture. It has 188 officially protected cultural relic sites, which house nearly 20,000 cultural relics including 1,627 valuable ones. Han Dynastic relics found here range from stone monuments, stele, and official script works to relief works, all of which are arguably natural treasures. The Gaoyi Stone Monument, a key site under state protection built in 209, is China’s biggest and most complete of all existing stone monuments from the Han Dynasty. The structure is of great value in studying China’s ancient architecture, stone engraving and official script.