Jiāngshān

The Jiāngshān culture straddles the Zhejiang-Jiangxi border in the tangled mountains at the headwaters of the Qiantang, taking in Jiangshan, Changshan and Kaihua west of Quzhou and Yushan, Guangfeng and Shangrao in northeastern Jiangxi. In ancient times it belonged to Gumie and then Yue, and under the Qin in 222 BC fell under Taimo County; the Tang founded Xijiang County in 621, Wuyue renamed it Jiangshan in 931, and the Yuan restored the name in 1276.

Through its hills runs the Xianxia Pass road, the historic track between the Zhejiang coast and Fujian's Min valleys. The culture is bound together less by administration than by speech: its varieties form the Shangshan branch of Southern Wu.

These varieties hold the westernmost edge of the entire Wu world at Shangrao, where Gan Chinese begins a few counties to the west. Long cut off by mountains, these county dialects diverged sharply and stay only partly intelligible with the Wu of the coastal plains.