Baiheliang Underwater Museum

　　The Baiheliang Underwater Museum is a national key cultural relic protection unit. It is located on the banks of the Yangtze River in the city center of Fuling District, Chongqing. Accessible via the Chongqing-Fuling Expressway and the Chongqing-Huaihua Railway, it is 119 kilometers from downtown Chongqing. As a historical and cultural humanities scenic area, it is an underwater museum specifically built to protect the inscriptions on Baiheliang. Officially opened on May 18, 2009, the Baiheliang Underwater Museum became the world's only underwater museum, offering visitors the chance to view 18 carved stone fish and over 30,000 characters of authentic calligraphy left by literati throughout history. The museum features Asia’s longest tunnel-type escalator. Illuminated by 10,800 optical core lights, the Baiheliang Underwater Museum becomes a dazzling and transparent “crystal palace.” Visitors can operate cameras in the exhibition hall built on the Yangtze River flood protection dike, and through computer screens, observe Baiheliang up close from various angles. Additionally, a small number of professionals may also visit Baiheliang by diving.

　　Baiheliang, anciently known as Bazhi Liang, is also called Baiheliang due to the large gatherings of white cranes on it. It is a natural stone ridge in the Yangtze River within the urban area of Fuling, measuring 1,600 meters in length and an average width of 15 meters. Since the first year of the Guangde era in the Tang Dynasty (763 AD), this natural stone ridge in the river has borne numerous poems, patterns, and records of low-water levels of the Yangtze, boasting a history of over 1,200 years. It is hailed as the “world’s first ancient hydrological station” and an “underwater forest of steles.”

　　In 1988, it was listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit. The inscriptions on Baiheliang record water level data for 72 low-water years spanning more than 1,200 years, leaving behind extremely precious hydrological information. There are also 165 stone tablet inscriptions, including: 1 from the Tang Dynasty, 98 from the Song Dynasty, 5 from the Yuan Dynasty, 16 from the Ming Dynasty, 24 from the Qing Dynasty, 14 from modern times, and 7 of undetermined date. In addition, there are 18 carved stone fish, 1 carved white crane, and 3 statues of Guanyin. The total number of characters in the Baiheliang inscriptions exceeds 30,000, distributed across different parts of the stone ridge, usually submerged underwater and only emerging when the river levels are low in winter. The hydrological data recorded in these inscriptions holds significant scientific research value for the comprehensive development of the Yangtze River’s water resources, inland waterway navigation, bridge construction, farmland irrigation, and urban water supply.

　　The design of today’s Gezhouba Dam and the Three Gorges Dam both referenced the hydrological data documented on Baiheliang. At the International Hydrological Conference held by UNESCO in Paris in 1974, Chinese representatives introduced the ancient hydrological station—Baiheliang’s inscriptions—which sparked great interest among experts and scholars from around the world.

　　Many of the poems, patterns, and inscriptions on Baiheliang were created by famous scholars and literati who visited the site throughout the dynasties, with over 300 names traceable. These include the inscription “Yuanfu Gengchen, Furen Came” by Huang Tingjian, a renowned literary figure and calligrapher of the Northern Song Dynasty, as well as poetic inscriptions by Wang Shizhen, Zhu Ang, Wu Ge, Liu Jia, and Chao Gongwu. The calligraphy styles cover regular, running, seal, and clerical scripts, representing the styles of Yan Zhenqing, Liu Gongquan, Ouyang Xun, and Su Shi. There are also texts in Chinese and Mongolian, along with bas-reliefs, high reliefs, line engravings, patterns, and borders. With their diverse styles and rich content, these underwater inscriptions are considered a remarkable wonder of the underwater world.

　　Due to the construction of the Three Gorges Project, the Baiheliang inscriptions, located below the waterline, would have been permanently submerged. To protect this underwater treasure, the underwater protection project for the Baiheliang inscriptions was approved by the National Cultural Heritage Administration. It adopted the “pressure-free container solution” designed by Academician Ge Xiurun of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and constructed an underwater museum. The project consists of four parts: the “Underwater Museum,” the “Connecting Corridor,” the “Underwater Bumper Pier,” and the “Onshore Exhibition Hall.” It covers a total area of 6,728 square meters (excluding the area of the “Underwater Bumper Pier”), including the 900-square-meter “Underwater Museum,” the 360-meter-long “Connecting Corridor” covering 500 square meters, the 5,328-square-meter “Onshore Exhibition Hall,” and the “Underwater Museum’s” protective cover structure, which is named the “Dome.” Located directly above the inscriptions, the oval-shaped dome covers the entire surface of the inscriptions. The protective cover’s arched shell is made of reinforced concrete, providing permanent protection for the inscriptions. The inscriptions are submerged in clear water, and an observation corridor is built outside the underwater protective shell wall. Visitors can access the underwater structure from the shore via a steel corridor and electric escalator, choosing among three ways to view the inscriptions: through corridor glass windows, via underwater cameras, or by wearing diving suits to dive and see them up close. This project is an unprecedented cultural heritage conservation effort in China, with a total investment of 150 million RMB.