Dujiangyan
Dujiangyan is one of the world's greatest water engineering operations, dating from the Qin dynasty. For over 2,000 years the Dujiangyan complex has provided water to millions of Chinese citizens while protecting them and their farms from flooding, a situation rarely if ever achieved anywhere else. The complex is located near the city of Guanxian, 56 kilometers (35 miles) from Chengdu in Sichuan Province, central China. The name Dujiangyan means "the dam on the capital's river." Construction of the project began in 256 BCE and was directed by the engineer Li Bing and his son Li Erlang. Dujiangyan incorporates a dike of piled stones that divides the Min River, a tributary of the Chang (Yangtze) River, into inner and outer channels. The inner channel is diverted for irrigation, allowing, at the time of its construction, about 1 million hectares of the Chengdu Plain to be irrigated without danger of flooding, supporting a population of 5 million. The complex has been in continual use since its construction, and expansion of the project in later years, along with annual silt removal, allows about 3 million hectares to be irrigated today. The role of the two engineers is commemorated in the Fulong Guan, or Temple of the Harnessed Dragon (referring to the river), a place of veneration for Li Bing, and the Erwang Miao, or Two Kings Temple, memorializing Li Erlang. Dujiangyan was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2000.
Further Reading
Luo, Zhewen, and Peng Shen, chief compilers. (1986) Through the Moon Gate: A Guide to China's Historic Monuments. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Needham, Joseph. (1971) Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 4, Part III, Sections 28–29. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
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