Government officials renamed the entire city in 1994, dropping thirteen centuries of history as Dayong to borrow the fame of a national park most of its own residents could not yet find on a map, a decision widely credited as China’s most successful city rebrand.
一九九四年,政府官员将整座城市重新更名,舍弃了沿用十三个世纪之久的”大庸”这一旧名,转而借用了一座当时连本地不少居民都未必知晓其确切位置的国家森林公园之名;这一决定,后来被普遍认为是中国最成功的一次城市更名。
Sixteen years later, park officials did it again, this time to a single rock. Cameron’s design team visited in December 2008, photographed thousands of the park’s quartz-sandstone pillars, and fed the images into the design pipeline for Pandora; on 25 January 2010, the 1,080-metre pillar long known as the Southern Sky Column was formally renamed Avatar Hallelujah Mountain.
十六年后,官方又如法炮制,这一次对象是一块岩石。卡梅隆的设计团队于二零零八年十二月来此考察,拍摄了公园内成千上万根石英砂岩峰柱的照片,并将这些影像素材融入潘多拉星的设计流程;二零一零年一月二十五日,这座长期被称为”南天一柱”的一千零八十米峰柱,正式更名为”阿凡达哈利路亚山”。
According to a poll of 60,000 citizens reported at the time, roughly 90 percent opposed the change; officials subsequently denied the renaming ceremony had ever taken place, even as the new name remained on every map and ticket the park issued afterward.
据当时报道的一项六万人参与的民意调查显示,约百分之九十的受访者反对这一更名;此后,官方一度否认曾举行过更名仪式,尽管公园此后印发的所有地图与门票上,用的都是这个新名字。
Three Thousand Pillars that Owe Nothing to Any Film
三千座与电影本无关系的峰柱
None of Avatar was actually filmed here; every pillar in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park was carved by water and wind alone, over millions of years, out of quartz sandstone laid down long before Pandora existed even as an idea. The park counts some 3,000 of these pillars, several exceeding 200 metres, rising out of forest so consistently wrapped in mist that early visitors described walking through clouds at ground level.
《阿凡达》其实并未在此取景;张家界国家森林公园内的每一座峰柱,完全是由风与水历经数百万年侵蚀雕琢而成,其石英砂岩的形成年代,远早于潘多拉星作为一个构想出现之前。公园内此类峰柱约有三千座,其中数座高逾二百米,矗立在常年云雾缭绕的密林之中,以至于早年的游客形容,行走其间宛如置身云端。
Two pieces of engineering now let visitors see all of it without climbing; the Bailong Elevator, the tallest outdoor lift in the world, carries passengers 326 metres up a cliff face in under two minutes, while the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge spans a gorge on a deck of transparent panels 300 metres above the valley floor.
如今,两项工程令游客无需攀登,便可将这一切尽收眼底;世界最高的户外观光电梯百龙天梯,可在两分钟内将游客送上垂直高度达三百二十六米的崖壁,而张家界大峡谷玻璃桥,则以透明桥面横跨峡谷,离谷底高达三百米。
According to the city’s own 2024 economic communiqué, tourism revenue reached ¥62.1 billion that year, up 20.8 percent, against a total GDP of just ¥65.4 billion, the lowest of any prefecture in Hunan; inbound visitor numbers jumped 166.3 percent to 1.83 million, while the permanent population stood at 1.487 million, continuing a slow decline.
据该市自身发布的二零二四年经济统计公报显示,当年旅游总收入达六百二十一亿元,同比增长百分之二十点八,而全市GDP总量仅为六百五十四点一亿元,是湖南省内最低;入境游客数量猛增百分之一百六十六点三,达一百八十三万人次;常住人口为一百四十八点七万人,仍在缓慢下降。
Getting to Zhangjiajie means flying into Hehua International Airport, which added direct international routes as visitor numbers climbed, or taking the high-speed line that now connects the city to Changsha in under two hours, a journey that once took most of a day on the old mountain roads.
前往张家界,可选择飞抵荷花国际机场,随着游客数量攀升,该机场已陆续开通多条国际直飞航线;也可乘坐高铁,如今从长沙前往车程不到两小时,而这段路程,在昔日的山路上曾需耗费近一整天。
Locals still call the pillar Qiankun Pillar, much as some older residents still call their city Dayong, but the tickets, the maps and the millions of visitors arriving each year all use the newer names instead.
当地人至今仍习惯称那座峰柱为”乾坤柱”,正如一些年长的居民仍习惯称自己的城市为”大庸”;但门票、地图,以及每年数以百万计涌入的游客,用的却都是那个更新的名字。
