Three Gorges of Yangtze River National Geopark (Hubei, Chongqing)

This geopark is located in the Three Gorges area (Huo Tang Xia, Wu Gorge and Xiling Gorge), western Fengjie County, Chongqing City, and Yichang, Hubei, is located to the east. It became a national geopark in 2004. The geopark is characterised by a gorge that was formed by the main stream of the Yangtze River and the geological and geomorphological features on both sides. The Three Gorges are most famous canyons in the world. They have the oldest metamorphic basement in southern China, which formed 2.9 billion years ago. The geopark has a complete geological profile that records 800 million years of crustal evolution, and more than 30 palaeontological fossils and thousands of species have been discovered. It is one of the birthplaces of human civilisation and preserves numerous ancient cultural relics, such as the ‘Wushan people’ from two million years ago, the ‘Dashi’ culture, the Bachu culture and the Three Kingdoms sites.