China, Seen
Through Beauty
Documentary photograph by Jan Kranendonk, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.Source / rightsWikimedia Commons · explicit-license

Fengjie County

Southwest · Chongqing

Three Gorges, the Kuimen Gate

Two hundred kilometers of limestone gorges that organized Chinese poetry for two millennia

The Yangtze forcing its way between sheer limestone walls: Kuimen, the gate cliff that opens the gorges, is the scene printed on the ten-yuan note, and the cliff walls still carry the poems carved into them.

  • sheer gorge walls
  • river gate
  • poem cliffs
Spring

Green walls and high water

Spring greens the gorge walls to their sharpest while water levels climb toward summer.

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026 · travel note

Three Gorges, the Kuimen Gate

City anchorFengjie County

Best time
April-May and September-November for the best weather; November for red leaves.
Stay
One to five days depending on cruise length

A way throughShort option: fly or rail to Chongqing or Yichang, road to Fengjie, and a day boat through Kuimen and Qutang.

On the wayChongqing and Yichang anchor both ends with airports and high-speed rail; cruise terminals are in the city centers.

With respectThe reservoir changed the river's character: banks are engineered and villages relocated — the walls above the water, however, are the same walls the Tang poets saw.

A boat dwarfed by the sheer limestone walls of Qutang Gorge near Kuimen on the Yangtze.Real scene

Seasonal experience

A November morning cruise

Enter Kuimen from downstream at first light

Take an upstream boat that reaches Kuimen in early morning, stand on the open deck as the gate cliffs close in from both sides, and hold the ten-yuan note up against the real thing — the match is the whole show.

Why now
The gorge is one of the few landscapes that is also a national currency: standing inside your money is a stranger feeling than it sounds.
Time needed
3 to 5 days for the full cruise; 1 day for the Kuimen section
Plan before you go
Cruise classes and routes vary widely; confirm which gorges your boat actually enters, as some short cruises skip Qutang.
Photo: Jan Kranendonk / Wikimedia Commons
Official tourismFengjie County People's Government