Purple Mountain or Zijin Shan (Chinese: 紫金山, Zĭjīnshān, lit. "Purple-Gold Mountain") is located on the eastern side of Nanjing in Jiangsu province, China. It is 447.1 m (1467 ft) high, with the lowest point 30 m (98 ft). Its peaks are often found enveloped in mysterious purple and golden clouds at dawn and dusk, hence its name.
A small mountain with an area about 20 square kilometres (4,900 acres), Purple Mountain is a mountain related to many historical events of both ancient and modern China. It was originally known as Bell Mountain ( 鍾山, 钟山, Zhōngshān) and also became known as Mount Jiang ( 蔣山, 蒋山, Jiǎngshān) after Sun Quan named Jiang Ziwen, an Eastern Han official whose spirit was said to haunt the site, as the mountain's god during the Three Kingdoms era.
More than 200 heritage and scenic tourist sites are now located in or around the mountain, among which include three national historical sites, nine provincial historical sites, and 33 prefectural historical sites. Located in or close to the hillside of Purple-Gold Mountain, there are also about a dozen national research institutes and universities.
Purple Mountain has 621 species of vascular plants, from 383 genera, 118 families (including 78 cultivated species).
Famous quotes containing the words purple and/or mountain:
“How clean the sun when seen in its idea,
Washed in the remotest cleanliness of a heaven
That has expelled us and our images . . .
The death of one god is the death of all.
Let purple Phoebus lie in umber harvest,
Let Phoebus slumber and die in autumn umber....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“... my mother ... piled up her hair and went out to teach in a one-room school, mountain children little and big alike. The first day, some fathers came along to see if she could whip their children, some who were older than she. She told the children that she did intend to whip them if they became unruly and refused to learn, and invited the fathers to stay if they liked and she’d be able to whip them too. Having been thus tried out, she was a great success with them after that.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)