The park is referred to as 'The Northeast Pearl'. The name Qianshan literally means 'Thousand mountains'. This is actually an abbreviation of the full name, According to legend, a long time ago the four corners of the sky collapsed. The Goddess Nüwa wanted to save the people living below so she patched up the sky with stones. One stone was accidentally dropped to the ground where is splashed, throwing the earth into thousands of peaks in the shape of a lotus blossom. Thus Nüwa created Qianshan. The park area of 44 square kilometres, is filled with both Buddhist and Taoist temples, monasteries and nunneries. Here is one of few locations where both religions are found sharing the same site. Among the peaks, a naturally wrought statue of the Buddha stands 70 meters high. It is claimed to be largest naturally occurring image of Maitreya Buddha in the world.