Shouning County

Shouning County (; pinyin: Shòuníng Xiàn) is a small county located in the Fujian province of China, under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Ningde. It is near the Zhejiang province. The Min Dong dialect of the Min language (similar to the Fuzhou dialect) is spoken there.

There are a number of covered bridges located there, and of the 100 or so woven timber arch "lounge bridges" throughout China, Shouning County has 19. [http://www.chinatour-cn.cn/archives/category/fujian/page/3/] The county hosted the second international conference on Chinese covered bridges from September 20 to 23, 2007.

Beilu opera (also called "Luantan"), a variety of Min opera, is popular in Shouning County. [http://www.chinadiscover.net/china-tour/fujianguide/fujian-ningde.htm]

Administrative divisions

Shouning County comprises 10 townships, 4 towns, and 201 administrative villages. These include:

Townships

*Da'an (大安乡)
*Kengdi (坑底乡)
*Qingyuan (清源乡)
*Zhuguanlong (竹管垅乡)
*Qinyang (芹洋乡)
*Xixi (犀溪乡)
*Tuoxi (托溪乡)
*Pingxi (平溪乡)
*Fengyang (风阳乡)
*Xiadang (下党乡)

Towns

*Aoyang (鳌阳镇)
*Xietan (斜滩镇)
*Nanyang (南阳镇)
*Wuqu (武曲镇)

External links

* [http://www.snzc.com/ Shouning County official site] (Chinese)
* [http://www.newpaltz.edu/~knappr/Fujian.pdf Covered bridges of Shouning County] (PDF file)
* [http://www.chinatour-cn.cn/archives/category/fujian/page/3/ Photo of covered bridge in Shouning County]
* [http://www.snzc.com/shownews.asp?newsid=3176 Article about covered bridge symposium] (Chinese)
* [http://www.snzc.com/Special.asp?SpecialName=寿宁木拱廊桥 Articles about covered bridges] (Chinese)