On its upper slopes is the Sanhuangzhai Scenic Spot, further west seen from Route G1516 (Yanluo Expressway), which skirts the range on the south.

Its numerous tributaries on the way to the East China Sea just above Shanghai water a broad E-W swathe called the Yangtze Delta.

Its low-altitude matrix of streams supports the great mass of Chinese people, the most numerous on Earth.

The landform (or geoform) that is referenced as Mount Song, or on which Mount Song is defined arbitrarily to be, is a range of irregular shape, more E-W than N-S, generally not located any more precisely than "between the cities of Luoyang and Zhengzhou,"[13] or "in Dengfeng 登封 district (Henan), not far from Luoyang.

A perpendicular axis running from a point on Route S85 to the south to the Yellow River would be 115 km (71 mi).

A scimitar-like series of parallel ridges with the convex side facing south extends E-W between the central valley and the city of Luoyang for about 46 km (29 mi).

[17] An observer at the confluence of the Yi and the Luo looking south to the Wan'anshan would perceive its general prominence over the plain.

Within the u is the Shaoyang Valley, now part of metropolitan Denfeng, which conducts its daily business, so to speak, in the shadow of the mountains.

It contains the remains and reconstructions of the ancient religious buildings, once a revolutionary target of the Chinese Communist Party, now supported by them as the basis of hugely profitable geotourism, geosports and geotheatre industries as well as vacation spot for the working people.

The western idea of a tourist agency that would book visits to scenic areas soon sparked a revolutionary counterpart in China.

The China Travel Service was founded by Cheng Guanfu in 1927 under the authority of the Republic at the height of its anti-tradition phase.

Its purpose was to take the travel business out of the hands of foreigners and provide the Chinese people with a native tourism.

In 1949 the People's Republic of China began under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong of the Chinese Communist Party.

The communists collectivized Chinese economic undertakings, dividing the workers into work units, or collectives, on the Soviet model.

The CPC attempted many times to draw up lists of buildings to be protected or to pass regulations defending heritage sites; however, higher-priority needs always seemed to nullify them.

Of especially high priority was Mao's policy of the Great Leap Forward, with which he hoped to transform China into a modern state.

He concluded that failure to meet deadlines was an act of sabotage conducted by secret capitalist enemies of the communist state, including party members.

Recruiting the Red Guards from the youth, Mao set them against tradition and the more established members of the party.

The 1978 and 1982 constitutions normalized the government, and emphasized personal rights and freedom, but the CPC remained in power and was the only party allowed.

Ironically the Red Guard was instructed to save and protect the very antiquities they had been created to destroy, too late for a large part of them.

The Chinese people everywhere began to express a spontaneous and passionate interest in preserving the cultural and natural heritage of China and making it available to the rest of the world.

In parallel to other countries they began to establish parks, which were brought under the umbrella of "protected areas (PA's)."

It is a park protecting scenic views, but open to tourism and some minor changes in support of it, such as a cable car.

Having begun under the Republic in the 1920s,[24] scenic areas increased but slowly under provincial dominion during the troubled years of the civil war.

Under the law of 1982 the government organized the scenic areas into provincial or province-level and national or state-level (ratified by the State Council), the latter being an upgrade of the former.

In 1986 it received a Master Plan formulated by Tongji University, which was ratified in 1990 by the State Council of the People's Republic of China.

[26] Other scenic spots are Songyang Academy, Zhongyue Temple, Star Observatory, Daxiongshan Xianren Valley, Fanjia Gate, and Zhaixing Tower.

In 1982 along with the scenic areas the State Council ratified a new type of PA, the Forest park or area, devised by the State Planning Commission (subsequent National Development and Reform Commission), also dividing such parks into provincial and national, with a third type, county.

The Songshan WHS was designed to include 367 buildings in eight groups arranged around the inside perimeter of the Shaoyang Valley.

[30] In contrast to the Songshan Scenic Area, the WHS is actually in the valley and occupies locations of downtown Dengfeng, although often in sequestered grounds.