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County aiming for the stars to attract tourists

By Li Xinran | January 1, 2009, Thursday | Print Edition

A SMALL county in northwest China's Shaanxi Province has spent 650 million yuan (US$95 million) on man-made scenic sites including an artificial moon and thousands of stars in a plan to attract tourists within two years.

A four-meter artificial moon built on a cliff and more than 2,700 man-made stars in Fengxian County cost 2 million yuan, according to The Beijing News.

Fengxian once prospered as a zinc and lead mining center. About 80 percent of its annual income was from mining.

The local government began to develop tourism in 2006 when the county faced the exhaustion of its mining resources and a drop in international metal prices.

The government of the county with a population of 130,000 also set up houses with a flavor of south China alongside a national expressway and built what it called the highest Asia's musical fountain with a 186-meter-high water spout.

Thousands of hectares of peonies and tulips have been planted on mountains to create the only hanging garden in western China, the report said.

The county also built a dyke to create a "Venice" along the upper stream of the Jialing River.

Residents have complained that the government has invested huge amounts in artificial sites but never protected historical relics.

The county government is also encouraging residents to change their registered ethnicity from Han to Qiang to qualify for preferential policies.

Fengxian was the hometown of the ancient Qiang, according to Zhang Shanyun, chairman of the Qiang Association in Sichuan.

Fengxian attracted about 250,000 tourists in 2007 and they spent about 120 million yuan in the county.

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