Sanqing Mountain World Geopark is located within Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province, covering an area of 433 km². It includes the main scenic area of Sanqing Mountain, Huaiyu Mountain Scenic Area, and Zihu Scenic Area. The main peak, Yujing Peak, has an elevation of 1,819.9 meters. It is named 'Sanqing Mountain' because the three steep peaks of Yujing, Yuxu, and Yuhua resemble the three revered gods of Taoism—Yuqing, Shangqing, and Taiqing—sitting atop the mountain. In September 2012, it joined the UNESCO Global Geoparks Network. It is a natural geographic area in southeastern China primarily composed of Mesozoic granite and Proterozoic–Paleozoic strata, featuring abundant geological relics and unique geological landforms. Currently, Sanqing Mountain World Geopark includes 4 townships and 35 administrative villages, with a total population of about 64,700, comprising Han and She ethnic groups. The population is relatively concentrated in the valleys in the park's boundary areas, along riverbanks, and along road corridors, while the central park area has no permanent residents.
The park lies at the junction of the Yangtze and Huaxia ancient plates, resembling a monumental work of Earth science, recording nearly 800 million years of Earth's evolutionary history. It preserves precious geological relics with multidisciplinary value in sedimentology, stratigraphy, petrology, structural geology, and geomorphology, and has rare biological communities with over 200 million years of evolutionary history. The park features a complete set of typical granite micro-landforms with concentrated distribution. The ingenious integration of granite landforms with ecology and climate forms extraordinary landscapes, representing excellent natural beauty and serving as a typical example of granite mountain peak forest landscapes in the world. Over a millennium of human-nature co-development has left the park with rich cultural heritage, including ancient architectural sites and landscapes created in line with the Chinese Taoist concept of 'harmony between humans and nature,' which are hailed as an 'open-air museum of ancient Chinese Taoist architecture.'
Sanqing Mountain Geopark is located in the southeastern part of the Eurasian continent, the eastern part of the subtropical region of Central Asia, and adjacent to the western Pacific Ocean. It is at the source of the tributary systems of the Xinjiang and Leanjiang Rivers in the Poyang Lake system of the middle Yangtze River and the tributary systems of the Qiantang River. Administratively, it is under the jurisdiction of Shangrao City in Jiangxi Province and is part of the main peak area of the Huaiyu Mountain Range. Geographical coordinates: 28°45'06"～29°01'08"N, 117°53'03"～118°13'20"E. The park is 43 km from Shangrao City, 107 km east of Quzhou, Zhejiang, 240 km west of Nanchang, Jiangxi, 227 km south of Wuyishan, Fujian, and 280 km north of Huangshan, Anhui. Currently, the park's transportation system mainly consists of a "well"-shaped external network including Shangrao Sanqing Mountain Airport, Hefei-Fuzhou High-Speed Railway, Shanghai-Kunming High-Speed Railway, Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway, Shanghai-Kunming Expressway, Jingwu-Chang Expressway, Deshang Expressway, National Highway 320, National Highway 205, and National Highway 206. Within the park, there are tourist-specific roads connecting the Shangrao high-speed railway station and surrounding expressways, and it is accessible from the airports in Shangrao, Nanchang, Quzhou, and Wuyishan. At present, the park has become one of the few places in China with a rapid transportation network; the dedicated tourist transport system connecting the park to external rapid transport hubs is also under expansion, which will provide fast and convenient transportation for visitors from all over the world.
Sanqing Mountain is located at the border of Yushan County and Dexing City in Shangrao, Jiangxi Province, situated at the junction of the four provinces of Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Anhui. The surrounding transportation is convenient, with nearby access to the G60 Hukun Expressway (Liweng section), G6021 Hangchang Expressway (Jingwu-Huang section), and National Highway 320, forming a crisscrossing road network. The Hukun Railway, Hukun High-speed Railway, and Hefei-Fuzhou High-speed Railway pass through the area, connecting all directions. Shangrao Sanqing Mountain Airport, Jingdezhen Airport, and Quzhou Airport in Zhejiang Province form an aerial corridor. The combined efforts of road, rail, and air transport have built a three-dimensional transportation network for tourism in Sanqing Mountain.
Note: The Liwen Expressway refers to the eastern section of the G60 Hukun Expressway (formerly Huru Expressway) within Jiangxi Province. It starts from Liyuan in Yushan County (the Jiangxi-Zhejiang border) in the east, connecting to the Quzhou to Yaoli Expressway in Zhejiang Province, and extends west to Wenjiazhen in Jinxian County, Jiangxi Province, connecting to the Wenhou Expressway in Jiangxi. It crosses the four prefecture-level cities of Shangrao, Yingtan, Fuzhou, and Nanchang, with a total length of 245 kilometers.
Mount Sanqing is located at the source of the Xinjiang River in the Poyang Lake watershed of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and at the source of the Qiantang River. The water system in the southern part of the park mainly flows into the Xinjiang River and Le'an River before entering Poyang Lake, while the water system in the northern part of the park flows into the Qiantang River before entering the East China Sea. Surface water is mainly composed of gullies and stream networks, and rainwater is the main source of surface water. Seasonal variations of surface water resources in the park are obvious, with abundant water sources in the rainy season and insufficient water in the dry season. Because the bedrock in the park has many fractures and high permeability, some rainwater infiltrates directly into the fractures and becomes groundwater (structural fracture water). Rocks with developed fractures generally have abundant water content, providing favorable conditions for the vegetation that covers the entire mountain. In relatively low-lying areas and gentle slopes, weathered rock debris and clay materials are distributed in layers, mostly contributing to pore penetration water.
The park's soil parent material is mainly granite, followed by Proterozoic-Paleozoic marine sedimentary rocks, with a small amount of calcareous soil.
Granite soils are loose in texture, containing a fairly large amount of quartz particles, and fragments of feldspar and mica can also be seen; they are poor in mineral nutrients and prone to erosion. However, due to factors such as frequent fog, little sunlight, high humidity, and thick accumulation of dead branches and leaves, the soils in mountainous areas at an altitude of 800–1200 meters are mostly yellow soils, also known as mountain yellow soils. On mountain tops such as Yujing Peak above 1600 meters, or in flat areas or mountain depressions, the soils are mountain meadow soils. Because the mountain tops have a cold and wet climate, lush vegetation, and accumulate a large amount of organic matter, combined with high soil moisture, particularly soil freezing in autumn and winter, organic matter decomposes slowly. The topsoil shows a large accumulation of humus and abundant grass roots tangled in unweathered parent material layers, and some soil layers may experience a certain degree of leaching, with a small amount of iron and manganese deposits. The soils around Yujing Peak are thin, with high organic matter, acidic, crystalline rock-derived mountain meadow soils, grayish-yellow in color, containing many semi-weathered fragments. The soils have high basic fertility, abundant content, are strongly acidic, and relatively loose in texture.
The park is 340 kilometers from the East Sea. The mountainous environment is influenced by the marine climate, belonging to the mid-subtropical monsoon climate type, and also exhibits the characteristics of mountain climate variation affected by altitude.
There are distinct four seasons, with cool and humid summers, and long winters.
The seasons of Sanqing Mountain roughly span from mid-October to late April of the following year for winter; late April to June for spring; July to August for summer; and September to early October for autumn.
The annual average temperature of Sanqing Mountain is 10.9°C, with an average temperature of 21.2°C in July. The highest temperatures in July and August reach 33°C, while the lowest temperature in January is -16.0°C.
The annual average rainfall is 1857.7 mm, while the annual average evaporation is 1331.6 mm. The annual average relative humidity is 82%.
