Badong County

Badong County is a county located in the extreme west of Hubei province in central China. The Yangtze River flows through the county and the county seat is located just east of the Wuxia Gorge in the Three Gorges region. Badong is famous for the Shen Nong Stream gorges located near Badong town.

The town is on the southern banks of the Yangtze River channel, flooded during the first decade of the 21st century after the construction of the Three Gorges Dam to the east. Badong town was mostly above the flood line and so more of the original town survives than is true of many other river towns along this section of the Yangtze. Coal mining in small pits is the main commercial activity in the region, along with farming. There is also a large cement factory on the river to the east of the town, which is a significant polluter.

The rural population of Badong county, as with many other parts of inland China, has seen major changes in the past two decades. The Chinese government's population control policies in the 1980s and beyond resulted in a sharp drop in births, and also in a change in attitudes, making many couples uninterested in having more than one child. The new freedom to travel and work in other parts of China has also led to a major exodus of workers to the coastal areas of China to find work. The older people tend to stay in the villages, and the workers often return to have their children, but they then generally return to the factories. The overall result is that many villages in Badong are shrinking and some terraced farmland in this largely mountaintainous region is being abandoned and allowed to return to its original state.