Mother Sculpture and Water Wheel Park
The Yellow River passed through the urban district of Lanzhou city, Along it, there are two attractions worth visiting: Yellow River Mother Sculpture and Water Wheel Park. The previous one is regarded as one of the best sculpture depicting the theme of the Yellow River, which has long been considered as the mother river of Chinese civilization. It was carved out of a huge piece of granite in 1986 in Beijing with 6 m in length, 2.2m in width and 2.6 m in height.
To the west of the sculpture (Binhe Road), tourists can pay a visit to the Water Wheel Park to get an idea how the traditional irrigation tool works. In fact, the water wheels were introduced into Lanzhou from Yunnan Province by a local people, who used to work in Yunnan in Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644), the first water wheel was successfully built on the north bank of the Yellow River in 1556. The large water wheels have a diameter of about 20 meters, small ones around 10 meters, therefore, through the irrigation device, the water can be lifted about 15-18 meters high. Generally the big wheels can irrigate 600-700 Mu of land (1 Mu=666.6 square meter), and small one about 100-200 Mu. In the ancient time, water wheels were very advanced and convenient irrigation tool.
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