As we all know, Nanning is the capital city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region today. In Chinese it is written as 南宁, called Nanning. But there is a character in Chinese for Nanning area. It is “邕“. Just very rare places have a unique single character in Chinese. Others like “桂“(Gui) means Guangxi Region, “粤“(Yue) stands for GuangDong province, ect. Many provinces have their own single character in Chinese, but it is really rare among cities. Well, Nanning is an exception.

Character "邕""Yong" means Nanning in Chinese Calligraphy

My information shows that this area is not called Nanning centuries ago. And it began to be called as 邕州(YongZhou) since Tang dynasty in year 632. That is the time when Nanning has its own single character name: 邕(Yong) for short.

YongZhou "邕州" in Chinese Character. This is a memorial arch.

YongZhou Old Street in Chinese Character. It is memorial arch of 邕州老街

Almost every major city has a river cross the town. Nanning has one too, and as Nanning once been called YongZhou, the river is named 邕江(Yong River). This river provides almost all the water resourses for Nanning City, that is why we called it mother river. Yong river divided Nanning City into two parts, the North part and the South part. You can see the river just right in the middle of Nanning map.

the three character in that rock means "Yong River Soul".

The main river on the right is Yong River(邕江)

hoho~ few years ago when floodwater comes, nice photo