Wuyi Mountains

The Wuyi Mountains (Chinese武夷山, Pinyin Wǔyíshān ) is located in the administrative area of the prefecture-level city of Nanping in the extreme northwest of Fujian province on the border with the neighboring province of Jiangxi.

It stretches for 500 km with altitudes between 1,000 and 1,500 meters. Its highest summit, the Huanggang Mountain is 2,158 meters with the highest elevation in Fujian. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The name of the mountain goes back to a legend. During the Shang dynasty lived in what is now Jiangsu, a descendant of the Yellow Emperor called Qian Keng. When riots broke out in central China fled his two sons, Wu (武= war ) and Yi (夷= Barbarian ) in the mountains of Fujian.

It is the flow of the nine turns driving along in a boat, which meanders in a 7 km long gorge through the mountains and so get to know the landscape with its 36 rock pillars on the waterways.

Famous are its rich fauna and flora of the Wuyi Mountains, his tea - a special variety of Wulong tea - and the many medicinal herbs. In the evergreen broad-leaved and conifer forests are found 700 year old Ginkgo trees, over 140 species of birds, and reptiles and amphibians. More than 50 species of snakes, including many poisonous snakes are found here.

The Wuyi Mountains are also a linguistic border to the northern Chinese-speaking neighboring province of Jiangxi. The Min dialects of Fujian are closely related to the languages ​​spoken on Taiwan dialects.