Zhenyuan Cannon Terraces [Dongguan]

Located at the mouth of the Pearl River and east of Humen Fort, Weiyuan Island has been the natural fort for sea routes from Guangzhou. The Ming Dynasty started building defense facilities here and the Qing Dynasty built tens of cannon terraces including Nanshan, Weiyuan, Zhenyuan, Jinyuan and Shetouwan cannon terraces to defense the gateway of China. These cannon terraces did play an important defensive role in the Opium War and against the foreign alliances.

Except Jinyuan cannon was severely damaged, the Weiyuan cannon terraces are well preserved with the original looks in the Qing Dynasty. These are important relics of ancient marine war defense mechanism. Weiyuan Cannon Terrace is the largest one among the preserved, with 38 cannons left and each cannon having 6000 kilograms and well protected by one-metre-wide fort walls. The walls are very solid as were made of lime and earthen stone, blended with glutinous rice and black sugar.

The mottled walls of the 100-metre-long Weiyuan Cannon Terraces recall us the turbulent wars at that time. Seeing through the square window of the fort, visitors would enjoy the beautiful view of busy ship traffic on the spacious Pearl River from a distance. The best photo-taking place is the open-air cannon terrace that has both cannon terrace and Humen bridge as background.

Transportation
Address: Nanmian Village, Weiyuan Island, Humen Town, Dongguan City
Telephone: 5527154, 5204052
By bus no. 2 or minibus

Price : 8 RMB