Qikou Ancient Town

Perched on a clifftop of Wohu Hill since the Ming, Heilong Temple overlooks the Datong rapids of the Yellow River and its meeting with the Qiushui in Qikou.

Shops crowd this river-and-land trading street, once a hub for moving hides, grain and oil across northwest China, where wealth gathered beside the dangerous rapids.

Cave dwellings stack up the loess cliffs at Lijiashan, a village that amazed painter Wu Guanzhong, who likened it to mysterious tomb figurines unearthed from Han graves.

The merchant Chen family built more than thirty fortress-like cave courtyards against the hillside, linked by hidden passages and guarded by gates.

Qikou's shops expanded from the Qianlong era; by the Daoguang era it had dozens of shops, and by 1916 it was an important Yellow River trading town.