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Sanmenxia's history

Sanmenxia Dam

The newly emerging city of Sanmenxia came into being the same year as the Sanmenxia Dam, which was the first dam on the Yellow River, built in 1957, and the city is the closest one to the river.

The city has a long history and is considered a birthplace of Chinese civilization, going back, it is said, about 6,000 years, when it was the home to large clans and tribes. Legend has it that, when Yu the Great, a legendary ruler of ancient China who founded the Xia Dynasty (ca.21st century BC -16th century BC), was fighting floods, he used his axe to cleave a high mountain, leaving three gorges -- “People’s Gate”, “God Gate” and “Ghost Gate” -- hence the name “Sanmenxia”, the Chinese for “Three-gate gorge”.

During the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC - 771 BC), it was part of the Jiao State and Guo State. Then, later, during the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC), it became part of the Jin State.

Guo was one of the key vassal states of the early Western Zhou and had a major impact on Chinese culture and history. In the 1950s, a cemetery from the Guo State was discovered in Shangcunling, near Sanmenxia, near the Yellow River Reservoir, containing more than 250 tombs of the nobility -- including two of monarchs, one for the first lady, and two for princes -- by a team of archaeologists.

Then, in the early 1990s, a second large site was excavated in a joint effort by the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Henan province and the Sanmenxia archaeology team. The group hit pay dirt when they uncovered the tombs of Guo Ji, youngest brother of the Zhou Dynasty king, and Guo Zhong, the king’s second eldest brother, as one of top 10 archaeological discoveries in China, the first in 1990, the second in 1991.

In 1996, the cemetery was added to the list of major historical and cultural sites under national protection, with State Council approval. The two large excavations unearthed a large number of relics and provided valuable resources for the further study of the Guo State.

When the city of Sanmenxia was set up in the late 1950s, the plans called for it to be a medium-sized industrial city, between Luoyang and Xi’an, the two ancient capitals of China. However, during the turbulent 1960s, because of the deterioration in Sino-Soviet relations and economic hardships, the original construction plans were changed and Sanmenxia was declared a county-level city, by 1961. But, with the reform and opening-up policy of the late 1970s, along with greater economic development, by 1986 it was upgraded to a prefecture-level city.