Land of abundance

Chengdu is traditionally known as the 'land of abundance' thanks to the construction of Dujiangyan, the world's oldest irrigation project still in operation.

A tea preparation ceremony in a restaurant in Chengdu

Two millennia ago, the Chengdu plain suffered from incessant flooding of Minjiang, a tributary of the Yangtze River, during the summer, while it was stricken with drought in the winter.

Li Bing, governor of Sichuan at the time, started harnessing the river by launching the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project around 256 BC.

When the project was completed, it fed a grid of canals that irrigated 160,000 hectares of arable land on the Chengdu plain. That area has since increased to 670,000 hectares.

The plain has stayed more or less free of floods and drought for more than 2,000 years, and has earned Sichuan the reputation of being a 'land of abundance'. The Chengdu plain has remained one of China's most important agricultural regions for centuries.

In the absence of a dam, experts have hailed the project as one of the world's most impressive hydraulic engineering projects.