Salt has been mined in Sichuan for at least 2,500 years, and for much of that time Zigong has been at the center of its production, luring traders from all over China. Brine is drawn from artesian wells beneath the city, along with natural gas used in the evaporation process. Chinese well-drilling techniques, mainly the use of bamboo cables and heavy iron drill-bits, were borrowed by the West during the 1850s, and later adapted for mining oil reserves. Until the 1960s, Zigong was full of bamboo pipelines and 100-m high wooden derricks. Even today one can visit some of these older mines and vintage architecture built to display the salt-merchants’ wealth.

The Zigong Salt Museum was built in 1736 as the Xiqing Guildhall, a meeting place for salt merchants from Shaanxi province. This lavish building features elaborate flying eaves, and a gilded, wood-carved interior based around a large galleried atrium, where plays were once performed. Exhibits cover the entire history of salt mining, from Han dynasty illustrations, to huge metal drill-bits and cutaways showing the drilling process. Other contemporary buildings of interest are two teahouses with charming antique interiors, where locals sit and chat. The most attractive of these is the 19th century Wangye Miao, a smaller version of the Xiqing Guildhall, which perches castle-like on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Fuxi Jiang on Binjiang Lu. The other is a former City Storekeepers’ Guildhall on Zhonghua Road, whose carved entranceway opens into a sloping, flagstone courtyard surrounded by private wood paneled booths.

The Xinhai Well, just east of the center, was easily the deepest in the world when drilling reached a depth of 1,001 m in 1835, producing a daily output of 14 cubic m of brine and 8,500 cubic m of natural gas. The 18-m high timber derrick, bamboo pipes, cables, and buffalo-powered winches used in the drilling and retrieving processes are on show, along with gas powered evaporation pans used to refine salt, which is still produced and packed on site. Zigong’s other forms of subterranean wealth are its fossils, found at a major Jurassic site in the northeastern suburb of Dashanpu, that has now been roofed over as a Dinosaur Museum. In 1985, extensive excavations were carried out with British assistance, unearthing hundreds of skeletons, including the stegosaur-like Gigantspinosaurus Sichuanensis, and the 9-m long, carnivorous Yangchuanosaurus and Hepingensis. Assembled skeletons are displayed in the main hall, along with partially excavated remains in the original diggings.