Jinshan District, the southwest gate of Shanghai, which Lies beside Hangzhou Bay, is the biggest district with a land area of 586.05km2 and a population of 530,000. It enjoys convenient transportation. The Shanghai—Hangzhou Railway, Jinshan Branch, the Tingwei Road and Xinwei Road run through the district from north to south and the State Highway 320 runs through the district from west to east while the Shanghai-Ningbo Wharf makes it possible for passengers to have a journey between Shanghai and Ningbo on the sea. Five highways (Xinfengjin Highway and Tingfeng Highway run from west to east while Shanghai-Hangzhou Highway, Tongsan State Highway and Jiajing Highway run from north to south) will be built in 2005 in this district, which will be the “bridgehead” on the way from Zhejiang to Shanghai after the building of Hanzhou Bay Bridge over the sea. The tourism develops well in Jinshan District for its rich cultural and historic resources. Primeval vegetation and rare plants and animals that have been extinct on the land of Shanghai can be seen on the Big Jinshan Island, the Small Jinshan Island and the Fu Mountain Island that are considered as the pure lands of Shanghai. Gugangsheng, which is in Shaji Village of Caojing Town in Jinshan District, is the only ancient seacoast site in Shanghai and Jidu Bridge and Shoudai Bridge built in the Song Dynasty are the oldest bridges in the region south of Pujiang River. The ancient cultural sites of Chashan, Qijiadun, Tinglin, Nanyanggang tell the developing process from the Neolithic Age to the period of the Qing and Han Dynasties. What’s more, there are some ancient towns such as Fengjing Town, Jinshanwei Town and Zhujing Town and five old temples of Wanshou Temple, Songyin Temple, Wulong Temple, Donglin Temple and Xingjue Temple. Jinshan District is called the barn of Shanghai for its well-developed agriculture. It is also famous for its modern folk paintings and the farmer paintings are regarded as world art treasure. What’s more, the art of black pottery that is called “black pearl” is well known at home and abroad. The Jinshan Islands Lies at the mouth of Hangzhou Bay in southern Jinshan County, the Jinshan Islands, after which Jinshan District is named, consists of the Big Jinshan Island, the Small Jinshan Island and the Fu Mountain Island. The Big Jinshan Island The Big Jinshan Island is the highest ground place in Shanghai with an elevation of 103 meters and an area of 0.3 square kilometers. It once was an important coast defense and a front capital city was built at the northern foot of the Jinshan Mountain in the 7th year under reign of Tian Jian of the Liang Dynasty and later the Jinshan City was set up in front of the former site of the front capital city by the emperors of Wu and Yue. Ciji Temple, which was built in the period of Yuan Feng in the Northern Song Dynasty on the place where the tower stands today, was damaged before. Similarly, Huoguang Temple built in the Three Kingdoms period at the northern foot of Jinshan Mountain is not of existence now. In the north of the Jinshan Mountain is the Hanxue Spring that was praised by several famous figures of the Northern Song Dynasty such as Wang Anshi and Mei Raochen with poems. The Small Jinshan Island The Small Jinshan Mountain, which was formerly known as the Shengshan Mountain, stands to the northwest of the Big Jinshan Mountain with an elevation of 32.6 meters and an area of 0.1 square kilometers. It is a rock mountain covered with shrubs and weeds but trees and it is not dwelled by people. The Tortoise Mountain Island The island, which was formerly called the Fu Mountain Island, is named the Tortoise Mountain Island for it looks like a tortoise. It lies to the south of the Big Jinshan Island with an elevation of 30.8 meters and an area of 0.05 square kilometers. Similar with the Small Jinshan Island, the Tortoise Mountain Island is desolate and uninhabited and no trees but weeds can be seen in the crevices of the rocks. Qijiadun Ancient Culture Site The site was found in 1935 in Qijiadun Village of Jinshan County in the northeast of Hangzhou Bay and was unearthed in February 1962 and May 1964. It turned out to be that the upper floor is of the Western Han culture while the lower floor is of the culture of the Warring States period. In the unearthed cultural relics of the 4 ash pits, 2 ancient wells and 8 tombs, there are pottery and glazed pottery pieces and cooking utensils such as ding, li, fu and zeng and food vessels such as wan, bei, dou and pan, as well as containers such as tan, guan, pan, bo and he. In addition, there were some pottery pieces, bronze mirrors, “Wu Zhu” (five Zhu) coins, ironware articles and stone implements of the Western Han Dynasty unearthed. Huayan Pagoda Located in Songyin Temple in Songyin Town of Jinshan District, Huayan Pagoda, which is also called Songyin Pagoda, is the only ancient pagoda in the region south of Pujiang River. In 1380 (the 13th year under reign of Hong Wu of the Ming Dynasty), a monk named Deran wrote 81 volumes of “Huayan Sutra” to collect money for the pagoda, which was set up four years later. The 32-meter-high square-shaped pagoda built under the style of the construction of the Tang Dynasty is of brick and wood structure with seven floors. It is named Huayan Pagoda for the top of the pagoda has 81 volumes of Huayan Sutra. The pagoda was reconstructed in 1775 (the 40th year under reign of Qian Long of the Qing Dynasty) and in 1847 (the 27th year under reign of Dao Guang of the Qing Dynasty), but it was struck by thunderbolt in 1961 and the top leaned. The government appropriated funds for the pagoda and the reconstruction was initiated in the January and finished in December in 1999. Huicui Garden Set up in October 1993 and reconstructed in March 2003, Huicui Garden is situated at 208 Shi Hua Da Di Road of Jinshan District with a site area of 1.2 hectares. There is a screen wall and a water lily pond and Haitian Building and Yide Corridor and Sanyou Pavilion in the garden. Haitian Building is a good place for drinking tea and Yide Corridor is decorated with 65 mural paintings made of ceramic tiles on the walls—30 about the anecdotes of the historic figures when they were young, 30 of Chinese places of interests and 5 works of modern calligraphers. What’s more, there are 9 horizontal inscribed boards, 11 couplets, 7 traditional Chinese paintings and 4 calligraphy works in the garden where the works of the 1st Farmer Paintings of Jinshan District were displayed. Songyin Temple Songyin Temple was built in 1352 and formerly named as Songyin Nunnery, in front of which Yanhua Pagoda was set up in 1380 (the 13th year under reign of Hong Wu of the Ming Dynasty). The nunnery was rebuilt in 1447 (the 12th year under reign of Zheng Tong of the Ming Dynasty) and renamed Songyin Temple. The temple was reconstructed in the period of the Republic of China (1912-1949) and in April 1991, Zhao Puchu, chairman of National Buddhism Association, inscribed the title of the temple. The temple has been open to the tourists since then. The Grand Hall was reconstructed in 1996 and a depositary of Buddhist texts with an area of 650 square meters was built in 2000.