Yinhu Mountain Country Park

Yinhu Mountain Country Park

Yinhu Mountain Country Park Experience deep valleys covered in lush forests, listen quietly to the murmuring streams, and admire naturally beautiful rocks—is it necessary to travel far? No. Just a five-minute drive from the city center will take you to the nearest expanse of pristine ecological forest to downtown Shenzhen—the under-construction Yinhu Mountain Country Park—where you can enjoy such delightful scenery. The mountain ranges of Yinhu Mountain are continuous, characterized by low mountains and hills with no large flat areas. The northern part of the mountain range is generally higher in elevation than the southern part. The highest peak of Yinhu Mountain—Jigong Mountain (elevation 445 meters)—stands tall in the northeast of Shenzhen Bay. Together with Wutong Mountain (944 meters) to the east and Tanglangding (430 meters) to the west, it forms a natural barrier to the north of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, as well as a green scenic line. Therefore, hiking in Yinhu Mountain offers a refreshing green experience.

Yinhu Mountain Country Park has numerous erosion gullies, with deep valleys, dense forests, beautiful rocks, occasional streams, and lush vegetation, making it extremely rich in biodiversity—an ideal place for exploring serene valleys. The largest gully is located near Yinhu Villa, and there is another valley in the northwest of the park, beside Fengze Lake Reservoir near Meilin Checkpoint, where the water is particularly clear.

The park is surrounded by numerous small reservoirs to the north and east, which are rare landscape resources within the country park. Standing atop Jigong Mountain, visitors can also appreciate the charm of the “Golden Rooster Greets the Dawn” scenery. The natural vegetation in the park mainly consists of South Asian tropical monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forests and evergreen shrub forests. In some valley areas, relatively well-preserved valley evergreen broad-leaved forests with characteristics of rainforests can still be found. The central area of the park features high mountains and dense forests, where natural and artificial vegetation coexist, offering a relatively rich variety of plant species. There are many distinctive forest landscapes in the park, such as sweet gum forests, bayberry forests, lacquer tree forests, Chinese tallow forests, and lithocarpus forests, forming one of the botanical wonders of the country park.

The vertical variation of vegetation in Yinhu Country Park is distinct: as you move from the foothills or valleys toward the mountaintop, the vegetation transitions from valley and low-mountain evergreen broad-leaved forests to mountainous evergreen broad-leaved forests and secondary shrub forests, and the plants you can observe also change accordingly. Wild bayberries are widely distributed throughout the park and are abundant. In early summer when the fruits ripen, visitors walking through the forest can admire the red hues covering the mountains and even pick the fruits to eat. The park is home to four types of rare and endangered plants: camphor trees (a national Class II protected plant), wild tea trees (a rare species), golden chicken ferns (a national Class II protected plant), and agarwood (a national Class II protected plant). Golden chicken ferns and agarwood are relatively widespread in the park; wild tea trees, native to southern China, are among the ancient plants of the Cenozoic era and hold significant importance for studying the origin and evolution of tea plants.