Jinan Baotu Spring and Li Qingzhao Memorial (趵突泉)

Baotu Spring lies on Baotu Spring South Road in Lixia District, Jinan, Shandong, China, and is the best known of Jinan's many springs, earning the city its name as the City of Springs. The spring was recorded in the Spring and Autumn Annals in 694 BC, making it among the oldest documented springs in China. It is famous for three vents that bubble upward from the ground, sometimes rising up to about a metre, and for the clear water that keeps a temperature near 18 degrees Celsius throughout the year. Emperors, poets and scholars praised it: the Qing emperor Qianlong is said to have named it the First Spring Under Heaven, and the Song poet Zeng Gong wrote about it while serving in Jinan. The park surrounding the spring holds several historic structures and memorials. The Li Qingzhao Memorial Hall commemorates the Song poet Li Qingzhao (1084 to about 1155), a native of Jinan, and displays her ci poems, calligraphy and objects related to her life in a courtyard of Song-style buildings. The park also contains the Guanlan Pavilion, the Wanzhu Lake, the Wangshui Pavilion, and a stone monument inscribed with the words Baotu Spring. Other springs in the park, such as the Golden Thread Spring and the Pearl Spring, add to the water landscape, and old trees and rockeries frame the pools. The site is a landscaped historic garden more than a museum, with the memorial hall providing the curatorial content, arranged around the poet's biography. Water levels depend on groundwater, and in the late twentieth century the springs stopped flowing during a drought, after which Jinan introduced protection measures and the flow has since been maintained. The park has been renovated repeatedly, and it now forms part of the Jinan Four Great Spring Groups scenic area near the old city moat and the Daming Lake.