Chunan is the county seat on the lake's eastern shore, the main service town for visitors and the hub for diving operators, boat hire, and accommodation. The town itself is functional rather than scenic — a standard small Chinese county town rebuilt in the post-1980s concrete idiom — but it has a settled character that comes from serving a local economy based on fishery and water tourism rather than manufacturing, and the lakeside promenade and the fish restaurants that face the water are genuine pleasures.
The market in the town centre sells fresh lake fish — grass carp, silver carp, and mandarin fish in particular — alongside the preserved and dried products (shrimp, small fish, pickled bamboo shoots) for which the Xin'an River valley has been known since before the flooding. The morning market, when fishing boats unload their overnight catches, is one of the few places to see the working fishery side of the lake's economy rather than the tourist side.