Zhangjiajie

Zhangjiajie municipality is a booming tourist city in the northwest of Hunan Province. Formerly known as Dayong, the city got its new name in 1994 from the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. The park , set up in 1982, is the first of its kind in China and far more popular than Dayong.

The national forest park, along with the adjoining two nature reserves of Suoxi Valley and Tianzi Mountain, Makes up Wulingyuan, the central scenic part of Zhangjiajie Municipality. Wulingyuan is in the middle of the Wuling Mountain that runs across Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces in central and southwest China. Wulingyuan was possibly first mentioned by the renowned Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei(701-761), who in one poem suggested that as early as his days, Wulingyuan was already a paradisiac pastoral retreat.