The county seat of Zigui is now the town of Maoping, a few kilometers away from the Three Gorges Dam on the southern banks of the river. The original Zigui town was upstream to the west and was abandoned and submerged under the rising waters of the reservoir in the early years of the 21st century. Passenger boats and ferries travelling up and down the river usually dock at Taipingxi on the north bank close to the Dam, with buses taking people on to the city of Yichang to the east.
Most of Zigui is hilly or mountainous with basic farming and tea production. There are many small coal mines in the mountains, with the coal trucked to the river then loaded onto barges for shipping downstream.
