Donglu Mountain

Overview

Donglu Mountain lies about 10 km east of Yongyang Subdistrict in Lishui District. The Jiangsu Provincial Local Gazetteers Office gives its main peak as 291 m and calls it a landmark mountain at the source of the Nanjing Qinhuai River; of the three springs on the mountain, one feeds the Qinhuai.

The name, according to the district government website, is said to come from the Eastern Han scholar Yan Ziling, who is said to have built a hut here, hence Donglu, "eastern hut"; "Donglu's layered peaks" is listed among the eight old views of Zhongshan. The district website marks this as a tradition, and this entry repeats it as such rather than as established fact.

The mountain belongs to the Qinhuai River basin. Its springs feed the Qinhuai, and Zhongshan Lake, that is Zhongshan Reservoir, takes in the mountain's spring water and is the landmark lake at the source of the river.

Formation and change

Donglu Mountain lies in the Ningzhenyang hill country. The district government's 2024 plan records that hills make up 72.5 per cent of the district's area and that the land falls from south-east to north-west in steps, and describes the opposite slopes on either side of the divide between the northern Qinhuai system and the southern Shijiu Lake system.

No first-tier source has been found for the geological age or the making of the mountain, so nothing is written here; nor has the date or size of the Guanyin Temple on the mountain been verified.

Landscape and visiting

Donglu Mountain is a landmark mountain at the source of the Qinhuai; of its three springs, one feeds the river. The district government website records a Guanyin Temple on the mountain.

In September 2011 the Nanjing Municipal People's Government approved the regulations on the protection and management of ecological green space. Their schedule of scenic areas lists a Donglu Mountain scenic area at municipal level, protected for its natural and cultural landscape, with an area of 109.4 sq km; the location column keeps the name of the day, Lishui County. What the schedule lists is a Municipal Scenic Area, and this site does not call it a provincial one.

No official source has been found for walking routes, viewing facilities or opening information on Donglu Mountain, so no visiting detail is given; readers who need it should go to the district culture and tourism department and the subdistrict office.

Open questions

• The district's highest point, 368.5 m, appears in two district government plans, of 2019 and 2024, and neither names the mountain it belongs to. This site does not guess and does not fall back on an encyclopaedia; the entry gives only the 291 m main peak from the gazetteers, and the two are not the same thing and are not rewritten into each other.
• The 291 m main peak has so far been found in one source only, the Jiangsu Provincial Local Gazetteers Office, with no second figure from a water, forestry or natural resources department; it is cited with its source.
• The 109.4 sq km area comes from the 2011 schedule, which gives only the status and the area, not the year the scenic area was approved; no approval year is written here.
• The environmental impact report for the river improvement project at Changle Agricultural Park in Dongping Subdistrict lists Donglu Mountain among the hills around the Dongping Reservoir dam, alongside Tangni, Jing and Fu hills. This sits awkwardly with the gazetteers' "about 10 km east of Yongyang Subdistrict"; both are shown as they stand.