Shimian County () is both the southernmost and westernmost

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

in the

prefecture-level city A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. During the Republican era, many of China' ...

Ya'an Ya'an (, Tibetan: Yak-Nga ) is a prefecture-level city in the western part of Sichuan province, China, located just below the Tibetan Plateau. The city is home to Sichuan Agricultural University, the only 211 Project university and the largest ...

Sichuan Province Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of th ...

, China. The county seat, Miancheng Subdistrict (), and the neighboring

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares ...

, Xinmian (), are often together referred to as Shimian. As of the 2010 census, Shimian County has a population of 123,600. The

G5 Beijing–Kunming Expressway The Beijing–Kunming Expressway (), designated as G5 and commonly referred to as the Jingkun Expressway () is an expressway that connects the cities of Beijing, and Kunming, in Yunnan province. It is in length. As of 2018, the expressway has ...

now passes through Shimian along the route between

Kunming Kunming (; ), also known as Yunnan-Fu, is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, China. It is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headqua ...

and

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), alternatively romanized as Chengtu, is a sub-provincial city which serves as the capital of the Chinese provin ...

. The county is located at the eastern edge of the Hengduan Mountains and surrounds the

Dadu River The Dadu River (), known in Tibetan as the Gyelmo Ngul Chu, is a major river located primarily in Sichuan province, southwestern China. The Dadu flows from the eastern Tibetan Plateau into the Sichuan Basin where it joins with the Min River, a ...

. The mountain ranges in Shimian County consist of the

Daxue Mountains Daxue may refer to: *Daxue (solar term) (大雪), 21st solar term in traditional East Asian calendars *''Da Xue'', or ''Great Learning'' (大學), one of the "Four Books" in Confucianism *Daxue Mountains (大雪山腰), mountain range in western Si ...

in the west, the Xiaoxiang Range to the southeast, and the Daxiang Range to the northeast.

Climate

Notable people

* Lai Ning, a teenager celebrated as a martyr after his death fighting a

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identi ...

References

County-level divisions of Sichuan {{Sichuan-geo-stub