Giant wheels
About 16 metres across.
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Giant wooden waterwheels turning on the bank of the Yellow River, the emblem of old Lanzhou. The first was built in 1556 by Duan Xu, a Lanzhou-born official of the Ming dynasty who had seen water-lifting wheels in southern China during his career and built one like them in his home city after his return. A wheel can be about 16 metres across and carries some 40 buckets that lift river water into channels watering the fields above the banks; a single wheel could irrigate more than 300 mu of land, about 20 hectares, and by 1952 there were 252 of them along both banks, before modern pumps took their place. The park was laid out on the south bank from 2005 and is presented as the world's largest park by the number and variety of its waterwheels; it has three parts, the Waterwheel Garden, the Waterwheel Square and the Cultural Square, along with a rebuilt copy of the Wo Bridge, a celebrated old timber bridge of Lanzhou, whose huge beams jut out alternately from each bank until they meet in the middle. Entry is free, per visitor guides. The park lies on the riverside promenade about two and a half kilometres east of Zhongshan Bridge, so the two make one walk along the bank, and late afternoon, when the low sun lights up the wheels, is the best time.
About 16 metres across.
A rebuilt timber bridge.
Along the Yellow River.
Binhe East Road, south bank of the Yellow River, Chengguan District, Lanzhou
Yes, entry is free, and the park lies on the riverside promenade about two and a half kilometres east of Zhongshan Bridge, per visitor guides.