📖 Meaning
Remote, deeply secluded mountains and valleys far from any human settlement. It describes a place that is extremely isolated, desolate, and cut off from the outside world. Often used for wilderness where one lives alone among nature.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase comes from the Zuo Zhuan (《左传·昭公四年》), a chronicle of the Spring and Autumn period attributed to Zuo Qiuming. In the fourth year of Duke Zhao's reign, the text records the ancient ritual of harvesting and storing ice: the king's officials would venture into deep mountains and remote valleys, where the cold was entrenched and the frost severe, and cut ice from those frozen places to store it for summer use. The line reads: '其藏冰也，深山穷谷，固阴冱寒，于是乎取之。' Over time the phrase came to denote any wild, inaccessible place far from civilization.
💡 Example Usage
他隐居深山穷谷，与世隔绝，终日与松竹为伴。
He withdrew to remote mountains and secluded valleys, cut off from the world, passing his days with only pines and bamboo for company.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 深山穷谷
- Pinyin: shēn shān qióng gǔ
- Literal Translation: deep, mountain, remote, valley
- Category: Distance
- Characters: 4