Yuexi is located in the southwestern part of Anhui Province, nestled in the heart of the Dabie Mountains. It spans the Yangtze and Huai River basins and borders Hubei Province. The county was established in 1936 by consolidating the border areas of Qianshan, Huoshan, Taihu, and Shucheng counties.The county covers a total land area of 2,372 square kilometers and currently administers 24 townships, 177 administrative villages, and 11 community committees, with a registered population of approximately 410,000. Yuexi is the only county in the province that integrates five distinct characteristics: a revolutionary base area, a poverty-alleviation region, a purely mountainous area, an ecological demonstration zone, and an ecological functional zone. It has served as a liaison point for nine consecutive provincial party secretaries and was redesignated as a liaison point for the provincial governor in 2023.

First, it is a renowned revolutionary base area. Party activities began within its borders as early as 1924, and Party organizations were established in 1927. During the Agrarian Revolution period, Yuexi was a vital component of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Revolutionary Base Area. The Red 34th Division was formed here, the Red 25th Army was stationed here, the Red 11th and 27th Armies fought here, and the Red 28th Army was reorganized here.During the war years, Yuexi lost 40,000 martyrs and civilians—accounting for one-quarter of the population at the time. Martyr Wang Buwen, the first Secretary of the Anhui Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, was born and fought in Yuexi. The Dabie Mountain Martyrs’ Cemetery is located in our county, with Commander-in-Chief Zhu De personally inscribing the words “Revolutionary Martyrs Live Forever.”

Second, it is the only purely mountainous county in Anhui. The county’s average elevation is 600 meters, with the highest peak, Tuojian—the second-highest peak in the Dabie Mountains—reaching 1,755 meters; there are 69 peaks over 1,000 meters. The mountainous area covers 2.72 million mu, with 7 mu per capita; arable land covers 280,000 mu, with 0.7 mu per capita. It has long been described as “eight parts mountains, one part water, half a part farmland, and half a part roads and villages.”

Third, it is the first county in the province to be officially designated as having lifted itself out of poverty. Due to historical and natural factors, our county has long been one of the counties with the widest scope and deepest severity of poverty in Anhui Province, as well as among the 29 national-level poverty-stricken counties in the Dabie Mountain region. In 1985, it was listed as one of the first batch of national key poverty-stricken counties, and in 2012, it was designated as a key county for poverty alleviation and development in the Dabie Mountain region and at the national level.In 2014, there were 36,367 registered impoverished households comprising 110,473 people, and 65 impoverished villages. In August 2018, the Anhui Provincial Government officially approved the county’s removal from the list of national-level impoverished counties.

Fourth, it is a National Ecological Demonstration Zone. The county is rich in natural resources, with a forest coverage rate of 75.63%, over 2,160 species of flora and fauna, and air quality meeting “good” standards on more than 98% of days. Experts have dubbed it a “natural garden,” a “natural oxygen bar,” and a “gene bank for species.”The county possesses comprehensive tourism resources that integrate “mountains, forests, springs, and waterfalls; rare flowers and precious trees; ancient temples and stone carvings; gorges and mountain fortresses; and revolutionary memorial sites.” Among these, Mount Sikong is the birthplace of Chinese Chan culture and was hailed by Mr. Zhao Puchu as “the foremost mountain of Chinese Chan Buddhism.” Yuexi is renowned both within and outside the province for its “smog-free skies” and the saying that “even when eating porridge in summer, one does not break a sweat.”

Fifth, it is a National Key Ecological Function Zone. Yuexi serves as a major source of the Wan River, Pi River, and other water systems in the Jianghuai River Basin. It bears the critical responsibility of providing an important ecological barrier and high-quality water resources for the development of surrounding and downstream areas. The concentration of negative ions here is more than 10 times that of urban areas, and surface water quality meets Class II standards or higher. The State Council has designated Yuexi as a National Key Ecological Function Zone, and the Anhui Provincial Government has positioned Yuexi as the forest ecological security barrier of the Dabie Mountains.