Hubei Shennongjia

Prologue: The Herb Gatherer on the Cliff

Long, long ago, the story goes, an old man named Shennong climbed the cliffs of western Hubei with a herb basket on his back. He raised ladders against the rock faces, climbed tier by tier toward the clouds, plucked every plant he had never seen and tasted it — the sun slid low, and his silhouette hung on the sheer wall like a resting eagle.

That mountain range took its name from him: Shennongjia.

There are others who say a “wild man” lives in these old forests, long-haired, vanishing into the mist — and no one, to this day, can say whether he is real. The hundred herbs Shennong tasted still sway among the cliffs; the legend of the “wild man” still drifts through the gorges. Shennongjia has been a riddle from the very name.

The Land the Glaciers Spared

Before the Quaternary glaciation came, Shennongjia already stood in western Hubei — its main peak, Shennong Peak, rises 3,106.2 metres, the highest point in central China. When the ice sheets swept across Eurasia and countless species faded into the cold, Shennongjia, by the accident of its terrain, became their last “refuge.”

So fir forests, arrow bamboo groves and alpine meadows unfold tier by tier with altitude, forming the most complete primeval forest at mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. It is China’s only county-level administrative unit named a “forest district” — a mountain that turned itself into the green museum of a whole continent.

Salt Trails, Work Songs and the “Wild Man”

For a thousand years, the old salt road between Sichuan and Hubei crossed these mountains, the porters’ work songs and herb-gathering chants echoing through the gorges as file after file of men vanished into the forest mist and reappeared at another pass. The mountain people held the wilds in awe — and lived by them. Their coexistence with the wilderness has continued here for millennia.

The folk mystery of the “wild man” has kept these primeval forests wrapped in wonder — a question expeditions still go into the mountains to answer.

The Expeditions of the 1970s

From the 1970s on, Chinese and foreign expeditions penetrated Shennongjia again and again. Deep in the forest they met the Sichuan golden snub-nosed monkeys leaping in the canopy, looked up to see the dove tree blooming like white doves, and bent down to read the old rings of the Chinese yew — one rare species after another showing its face to the world.

Shennongjia was no longer only a mountain of legend. It began to be measured anew, in the name of science.

From Reserve to World Heritage

In 1986, the Shennongjia National Nature Reserve was established — for the first time, the mountain had formal guardians.

In 2016, Hubei Shennongjia was inscribed on the World Heritage List under criteria (ix) and (x): it preserves a complete subtropical montane vertical ecosystem, recording biological evolution still in progress; as a refuge for relict species, it shelters the dove tree, the Sichuan golden snub-nosed monkey and other precious living things.

Today, above the sea of clouds at Shennong Peak, the calls of the golden snub-nosed monkeys still echo — this “green treasury” of central China is still breathing softly.

Epilogue: Calls Above the Sea of Clouds

In the legend, the herb gatherer’s silhouette has hung on the cliff for a thousand years; outside the legend, a monkey’s call is coming down from the sea of clouds.

Shennongjia has never been in a hurry to explain itself. It simply stands on the roof of central China, letting the forest keep growing and the legends keep telling themselves — the way a mountain should.

Outstanding Universal Value (OUV)

• Criterion (ix): Shennongjia preserves a complete subtropical montane vertical ecosystem, recording the ongoing processes of biological evolution.
• Criterion (x): As a refuge for relict species, Shennongjia is an important habitat for the dove tree, the Sichuan golden snub-nosed monkey and other rare species.

Facts at a Glance

• Main peak Shennong at 3,106.2 m — the highest in central China
• Inscribed in 2016; preserves the most complete mid-latitude primeval forest in the Northern Hemisphere