Henan Dahongzhai National Forest Park

Dahongzhai National Forest Park, north of Yuzhou city, offers a pleasant contrast to the flat plains and ceramic workshops of the city below. The park covers a section of low hill forest with a reasonable network of hiking trails, several small reservoirs, and views south toward Yuzhou across the Henan countryside. It is not dramatic scenery — the hills top out at modest elevations — but after the flat river plains and urban environment of central Henan, a few hours among trees on a forest trail is genuinely refreshing.

Entry is ¥60 and the park is quietest on weekday mornings. The main circuits take two to three hours on foot. Dahongzhai is a practical add-on to a Yuzhou visit if you are spending a full day in the area rather than just a half-day at the ceramic sites.

things to do sight
A story
The Dahongzhai park sits on a series of low hills north of the Yuzhou plain — hills that remained forested in part because they were too steep for agricultural terracing. The contrast between the wooded park and the intensively farmed plains visible from the ridge trails makes the landscape history of central Henan immediately legible: the forests that once covered this part of China survive only in fragments on land that was too awkward to plough.