Saihanba National Forest Park in northern China is as beautiful as it is functional. Nearly half a billion trees reach towards the sky in Hebei Province, north of Beijing, but it wasn’t always this way.
The area, which measures around 77 square miles, was a sparse desert for around a century between 1863 and 1962.
The absence of trees and other vegetation allowed fierce sands storms to form and batter Beijing, Tianjin and other nearby cities.
To mitigate the problem, the brutal communist government led by murderous dictator Mao Zedong, decided to build a man-made forest over the desert.
However, it wasn’t until long after Chairman Mao’s death in 1976 that the man-made forest was formally recognised as one.
In total, the site took more than thirty years to develop and wasn’t constituted as a National Forest Park until 1993.
Despite the healthy crop of trees, the area is frosted over for most of the year. The average annual temperature is less than two degrees and the snow season lasts seven months of the year.
Notwithstanding the cold weather, visitors have raved about the site.
One Tripadvisor user wrote: “Saihanba National Forest Park is massive. This is the world’s largest man-made forest park area. There are nearly half a billion trees in the park. Historically, the park had been part of the royal hunting grounds, however, at the end of the Qing dynasty, deforestation had caused the land to turn into a desert of sand and dunes. In the 1960’s, China started to reforest the area, creating the forests and grasslands that we see today.
“It took about 3.5 hours to drive there from Chengde city centre. It took another 1.5 hours to drive the 60 km from the park entrance to my hotel. We ended up spending three full days in the park and had still only seen half of it.
“Really, if you are coming here, you have to drive. There are tour buses that visit but they just take you to a few over touristy, famous sites. What you really want to do here is drive your car to some remote paddock, park and walk out into the grasslands alone.
“Only when you are away form the other tourists can you see the nature of the place. You can spot rare flowers, unusual bird species, squirels and other animals. If you are a nature lover, this is the part of China you must come too.”