Zigong自贡: Dinosaur & Salt City
(updated from 2005)
Zigong Dinosaur & Salt City: As you approach Zigong 自贡 , sculptures and posters of dinosaurs announce that you’re arriving in “Dinosaur City”, as the city is known by the Chinese.
the Fuxi River
Zigong is a pleasant modern city, built along the banks of the Fuxi River that has so far managed to maintain large areas of traditional and interesting architecture, despite its recent development and prosperity.
Not Only Dinosaurs
Besides Dinosaurs, Zigong has an abundance of sites, and is definitely worth spending a couple of days. The city owes its prosperity not so much to dinosaurs, as to salt and, in particular, the important role this product played during Imperial times.
salt mining
The salt mining techniques developed at Zigong were among the most sophisticated in the ancient world. They included building precision drills, which could perforate more than 300 meters, and the use of cables, made of bamboo fibre, to take out the brine from the bowels of the earth.
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