Songpan Ancient City, or Songpan Ancient Town, known as Songzhou Town in ancient times,Located in northwest of Sichuan province and northeast of Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Songpan bordered by Jiuzhaigou county and Pingwu county to the east, Mao county to the south, and Hongyuan and Heishui county to the west. Songpan is 335 kilometers far away from provincial capital Chengdu, and 431 kilometers from state capital Maerkang. Thanks to the complex terrain and high altitude, which is around 2849.5 meters, there is no notable variation with the seasons in Songpan.It was the famous military base on the cutting edge of the frontier from the time of the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) in history due to its advantageous situation geographically, which was considered the "west portal of Sichuan". It is the closest big town to the Huanglong National Park and the Jiu-Huang Airport, which also services Jiuzhaigou Valley National Park.
Songpan Ancient City was built during Tang Dynasty and it was later rebuilt during Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644). Songpan was an important military post. It was also an important economic and trading center for horse and tea exchange between Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai and Tibet. In August 1935, led by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the retreating Chinese Communist Army marched through the marshes on the plateau of Songpan to advance to the north western province.
The town as a whole consists of both an inner city and an outer city. There are five city gates in the inner city, facing north, south, east, west and southwest. There are also two city gates in the outer city. Each gate was built from vast flagstones, with its ceiling shaped in a semi circle. Stones at the base of the gates are embellished with delicate engravings.
Constructed from giant blue bricks, each of which is twenty inches long, ten inches wide and five inches thick, the city wall is approximately four miles long and over 33 feet high, covering an area of nine square miles. The bricks were made of sticky rice, lime and Chinese wood oil and each weighs 30 kilograms, guaranteeing the strength of the city wall.
Standing on the city wall, visitors can feast their eyes on a spectacular vista of the entire ancient town. From this viewpoint, visitors can admire the surrounding mountainous landscape and the swift flowing Min River that passes through the town. As they do so, they may wish to savor one of the legendary historical stories that are associated with the area.
