Shimian County () is both the southernmost and westernmost

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers 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' ...

of Ya'an, Sichuan Province, 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 cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

, 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 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 headquar ...

and

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...

. The county is located at the eastern edge of the Hengduan Mountains and surrounds the Dadu River. The mountain ranges in Shimian County consist of the Daxue Mountains in the west, the

Xiaoxiang Range The Xiaoxiang Range () is a mountain range in Sichuan Province, China. It is part of a complicated system of mountains in south-central Sichuan, and runs in the general north-south direction within Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture and the adjace ...

to the southeast, and the Daxiang Range to the northeast.

Climate

Notable people

Lai Ning Lai Ning (; 20 October 1973 – 13 March 1988) was a teenage schoolboy in China, who died while fighting a forest fire in Shimian County, Sichuan. Lai Ning's actions were deemed heroic by the Chinese government and Lai has been celebrated as a ...

, 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 Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...

References

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