On Oct. 12, the “Mountains and Waters of the Tibetan and Qiang Lands, Appreciated Together — 2026 Overseas Chinese-Language Media Trip to Aba,” hosted by the Sichuan Overseas Friendship Association and organized by the Sichuan Branch of China News Service, was launched in Chengdu. Heads and reporters of 20 overseas Chinese-language media organizations from around the world thus began an in-depth visit to the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, telling the vivid story of Aba’s high-quality development with their cameras and their writing. The reporting group walked into the ancient pear orchard in Qingning Village, Qingning Township, Jinchuan County, and beneath the vigorous, gnarled century-old pear trees experienced for themselves the ecological richness and industrial vitality of this pear country on the plateau.
The ancient pear orchard in Qingning Township, Jinchuan County, stands in Qingning Village and is part of the core area of the 4A-level Shiwai Liyuan (Beyond-the-World Pear Orchard) scenic area, at an elevation of about 2,130 meters. The orchard holds a large number of ancient pear trees several hundred years old, their trunks vigorous and their branches gnarled and twisting; it is the native growing area of Jinchuan snow pears and preserves the long-standing marks of pear-farming culture. The whole orchard spreads along the slopes of the river valley and blends with Jiarong Tibetan villages, terraced fields and the course of the Greater Jinchuan River, forming a pastoral picture in which people and nature lean on each other.
The visitor center in the orchard stands beside National Highway G248, nine kilometers from the Jinchuan county seat, and serves the comprehensive functions of the Shiwai Liyuan scenic area; it is equipped with an information service area, a display area for distinctive farm produce, public restrooms and free parking, and can provide self-driving visitors with basic services such as rest, supplies and tour-route guidance.
Jinchuan County has a long history of snow pear cultivation and was recognized as “China’s Home of Snow Pears” by the Ministry of Agriculture in the 1980s. Legend has it that during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty, General Agui campaigned in Jinchuan and brought Jinchuan snow pears back to the capital as tribute on his triumphant return; Jinchuan snow pears became famous at a stroke and were thereafter recorded in the histories as tribute for a long period. As the largest original, high-altitude snow pear growing area in the world, Jinchuan County now has more than one million pear trees, of which more than 6,000 are ancient trees over a hundred years old. The old pear trees have long been regarded locally as a symbol of harvest and good fortune, and at festivals villagers often burn incense and pray beneath them for favorable weather and peace in the year to come. In 2014 the Ministry of Agriculture selected 140 “Beautiful Chinese Countrysides” nationwide, and both the snow pear blossoms and the red-leaf landscape of Jinchuan County made the list, making it the only “Beautiful Chinese Countryside” scenic area in the country to appear twice with a single landscape.
In terms of varieties and scale, Jinchuan now grows 89 snow pear varieties, including Jinhua pear, Jitui pear and Huangjin pear, over a planted area of 40,000 mu and one million trees. The 1980s were the golden age of Jinchuan snow pears, when the fruit was a hot seller snapped up by traders from elsewhere and an important source of income for local people. In recent years the county Party committee and county government have vigorously carried out the “high-quality snow pear project,” and in line with the snow pear industry revitalization plan of “tackling key problems on a hundred mu, demonstrating on a thousand mu, revitalizing on ten thousand mu,” have comprehensively advanced the protection and integrated development of Jinchuan’s forest resources, so that Jinchuan snow pears have completed the transformation from fruit growing to sightseeing tourism.
The extension of the industrial chain is also speeding up. Jinchuan Jinxueli Fruit Industry Development Co., Ltd. is a provincial-level key leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization and a national science and technology-based small and medium enterprise; adopting the “company plus base plus farmers” model, it focuses on the intensive processing of Jinchuan snow pears. The company has its own snow pear growing base, and its production lines can process more than 20 products, including snow pear paste, concentrated juice, snow pear fruit wine and snow pear soft candy, radiating benefits to fruit growers in many villages of Jinchuan and linking up the whole snow pear industry chain of “orchard growing — intensive processing — brand sales — agriculture-tourism linkage,” making it the core player in extending and completing Jinchuan’s snow pear industry chain.
From the protection of century-old pear trees to the building of the pear culture demonstration zone, from traditional growing to sightseeing tourism and intensive processing blooming in many directions, Jinchuan is using a single pear tree to link ecological protection, cultural continuity and industrial revitalization. Members of the reporting group said they would record the scenery of this plateau pear country through the four seasons with their cameras, and tell in words the story of Jinchuan snow pears moving from “a single tree” to “a whole chain,” so that more people can see the vivid practice of rural revitalization in Aba.