都江堰

Dūjiāngyàn

proper noun

Meanings

1 Dujiangyan, irrigation system on the Min River in Sichuan, built around 256 BC and still in use

Characters

capital; here part of a river name

Examples

HSK 5

都江堰是李冰修建的。

Dūjiāngyàn shì Lǐ Bīng xiūjiàn de.

Dujiangyan was built by Li Bing.

HSK 7-9

两千多年来，都江堰一直在灌溉成都平原。

Liǎngqiān duō nián lái, Dūjiāngyàn yìzhí zài guàngài Chéngdū Píngyuán.

For over two thousand years Dujiangyan has kept irrigating the Chengdu Plain.

Tips

history

Built around 256 BC under 李冰, the Qin governor of Shu, it splits the 岷江 (Min River) into an inner and an outer channel with a levee shaped like a fish's mouth instead of a dam, so floods pass by and water reaches the fields. It made the Chengdu Plain the 天府之国, the 'land of abundance', and is a World Heritage site. The city around it is 都江堰市.

mistakes

都 is read dū here, as in 成都 and 首都, not dōu 'all'.

Stroke Order

都 dōu

江 jiāng

堰 yàn