The city parks in Shiyan — particularly the forested hillsides on the edges of the urban area — offer immediate access to the Qinba mountain backdrop that makes Shiyan's setting so unexpected for an industrial city. Walking up into the wooded hills above the city at dawn reveals the valley below filling with morning haze, the factory chimneys and apartment towers of the automotive city surrounded on all sides by forested ridges. It is an arresting visual contrast that puts the scale of the "Third Front" industrial project in its natural context.
The parks function mainly for the city's residents: tai chi practitioners gather at dawn, and in the early evening the pathways fill with people doing the kind of unhurried communal exercise that Chinese urban parks do better than anywhere else. The mountain air in Shiyan is noticeably cooler and cleaner than in Wuhan or the Yangtze valley cities, which contributes to the outdoor culture.