Haikong Cave


Useful Information

Location: Chongqing, Wansheng District
Open: closed
Fee: closed
Classification: SubterraneaFactory
Light: LightIncandescent Electric Light System
Dimension: H=50 m, Ar=47,000 m², T=18 °C.
Guided tours:  
Photography:  
Accessibility:  
Bibliography:  
Address: Haikong Cave.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1939 installation of the plane factory.
OCT-1944 first plane, a middle-range sky truck, completed.
1949 factory closed.
2008 start of development.

Description

Haikong cave is of enormous size, a 50 m high cavern with an area of 47,000 m². This space was used by the Kuomintang (KMT) Party as a secret factory for the development and construction of planes. Constructed at the beginning of World War II the first plane was completed in 1944, almost at the end of the war. It was China's first airplane, a middle-range sky truck. Only a few years later the factory was abandoned, when the Nationalists lost the civil war against the Communists and fled to Taiwan. Since then the cave was not used anymore. Now the tourist bureau of Wansheng District of Chongqing plans to develop the site into a tourist resort. This development will cost more than 500 million yuan (67 million U.S. dollars).

At least, that was the story which was published by Reuters in 2007 and became a popular gap filler in hundreds of newspapers over the next months. Unfortunately that was the last to be heard. As far as we know it never happened, the cavern was never opened to the public.