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The entrance

to Dujiangyan irrigation system. It is an irrigation infra-structure built in 256 BC. It is still in use today and still irrigates over 5,300 square kilometers of land in the region.

 

About the irrigation system (from the China Heritage Newsletter):

 

"In 268 BCE, Li Bing is said to have personally led ten of thousands of workers in the initial stage of construction on the Min River banks. The workers made bamboo cages and threw cages of rocks into the middle of the river…It took them four years to complete a water-diversion levee resembling a fish's mouth. When the water reaches Yuzui, the 'fish's mouth,' it is naturally diverted into the inner and outer flows. The inner flow is the diversion channel that leads to Chengdu. It took a further eight years to cut through the mountain, and the 20 m wide culvert allows the water to flow into the Chengdu Plain. The key part of the project was the diversion gate called Baopingkou that resembles the neck of a bottle, and through this passage, the waters of the Min River could irrigate the Chengdu Plain in perpetuo. In 256 BCE, after 14 years of arduous labour, the Dujiangyan project was completed."

 

(A map and photos of the Dujiangyan irrigation system here.)

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Uploaded on May 22, 2010
Taken on May 16, 2010