Glimpse from the wellsalt factory in Zigong, China

Well salt harvesting, Zigong, China (自贡)

Posted by Ziren (Singapore, Singapore) on 24 June 2010 in Business & Industry and Portfolio.

Well salt is warmly welcomed and well-loved all over the world - in fact, most of the well salt harvested here in Zigong are exported to Japan. The Japanese prefer well salt over sea salt, and they import well salt from Zigong (Sichuan Province) in China where well salt is abundant. The well salt industry in Zigong has been running for well over 1000 years, starting since the Song Dynasty! *Zigong is a city rich in heritage and it nicely reflects the Chinese culture, just like other cities and areas in Sichuan.

I am Ziren Wang, a student from Raffles Institution, Singapore. I picked up a camera in January 2009 and I've never looked back. I seek to contribute to the very community that introduced me to photography as well - my school. I frequently and delightfully cover events for my school and my community as a member of the photographic society.

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Comments (3)

Curly from South Shields, United Kingdom

This is a fascinating picture showing salt pans on a smaller scale. Three hundred years ago South Shields had many salt pans and flats, long before it grew to it's present size.

24 Jun 2010 5:48pm

@Curly: i did some googling on salt pans in south shields and i came across some interesting images! *but there is a significant difference between the salt industries in zigong and south shields- zigong harvests well salt i.e. brine is extracted from over 1km underground and then heated through natural gas in one of these pans in the picture to acquire consumable well salt; south shields harvests seawater and evaporates them to acquire salt. hope i got it right xD