National Parks of ChinaOverview
| Province | Jiangsu |
| Location | Islands in Lake Tai, Wu County, Suzhou, Jiangsu |
| Latitude, longitude | 31.0, 120.3 Google Maps |
| Highlights | Lake, islands, Taihu rocks |
| Top sights | Banbi Peak |
| Area | 2 km² |
| Highest point | 81 m |
| Nearby cities | Suzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou |
| Nearby sites | Lake Tai, West Lake, Hangzhou, Huangshan (Yellow Mountains), Classical Gardens of Suzhou, Zhongshan (Purple Mountain), Nanjing |
| Themes | Islands, Lakes, Hills, Rock formations |
About
The Three Hills (Sanshan) scenic area lies in Lake Tai south-west of East Dongting Hill in Wu County, Suzhou, Jiangsu: one large island and two small ones. The main island, Sanshan, is 1.6 km² and 81 m high; the islets Zeshan and Jueshan lie 3 km away.
Sanshan is a source of Taihu rocks and has remains of the Song “flower and rock tribute”; its famous rocks are Banbi Peak, “the first strange peak of Wu”, and Four Generations Under One Roof, which shows four kinds of rock of different ages recording the island’s sinking into a shallow sea and later volcanic eruption. The Sphinx Rock, popularly the Stacked Stones One-Line Sky, looks just like the Sphinx.
In 1984 Palaeolithic chipped stone tools and vertebrate fossils 12,000 years old were found on the island, the “Sanshan culture”. Birds are plentiful: hill mynas with red bills and feet, hawks, mandarin ducks and black-headed gulls.
Food
Soy-braised duck; the “three whites” of Lake Tai: white shrimp, white shad and whitefish; Lake Tai mandarin fish.
Getting there
Bus 20 from Suzhou railway station to Dongshan town, then a minibus to the Luxiang pier, from which a ferry leaves daily at 14:30 for Sanshan, about an hour; speedboats can be hired.