Stone Forest

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The Stone Forest Scenic Area is located in Shilin Yi Autonomous County, Kunming City, Yunnan Province, 78 kilometers from the provincial capital, Kunming. Here, the climate is spring-like all year round, pleasant, with abundant resources, making it suitable for tourism throughout the year. It is an excellent place for sightseeing, vacationing, and escaping the cold or heat. The Stone Forest features a variety of karst geological landscapes, a vast area, uniquely developed lava formations, and complex geological evolution, with extremely high scientific and educational value as well as aesthetic value. It is known as the 'essence of the world's karst,' 'the number one wonder under heaven,' and a 'natural museum of shaped landforms.' The scenic area has successively been awarded titles such as 'World Geopark,' 'National Scenic Area,' 'National 5A Tourist Attraction,' and 'National Civilized Scenic Tourist Area.' In 2007, as an important part of the 'South China Karst,' it was successfully listed as a 'World Natural Heritage' site.

The Stone Forest integrates grandeur, strangeness, danger, elegance, seclusion, mystery, and vastness into its natural landscape. The peculiar mountains and bizarre stones are lifelike, with magnificent momentum, leaving people in awe; Sani culture is as brilliant as a starry sky, with a long epic history and world-renowned reputation. The Stone Forest Karst landform covers an area of more than 1,100 square kilometers, with a protected area of 350 square kilometers. “Stone Forest has peaks with height of over a hundred meters, only entered by climbing. Strange stones are everywhere like troop, architecture, or road network. Black stones all have different shapes and styles. Water flows behind them, clear and cold as snow. It is said that someone once saw two plum trees with red fruit in winter; he could not pick from distance but never found them again the next day. This place was commonly called Lizijing (plum valley).” (Lunan Local Records, the 57th year of Kangxi era, Qing Dynasty)
The Lizijing mentioned in the above paragraph is the present Stone Forest, which is also called “the Major and Minor Stone Forests”. And the above is one of the earliest words in historical books describing Stone Forest. Stone Forest Scenic Area includes altogether five parts: Bushao Mountain in northwest, the Major and Minor Stone Forests in the center, Ancient Ganoderma in the south, and Liziyuanjing in the east, covering an area of about 12 square kilometers. Stone Forest Scenic Area is featured as deep, quiet, adventurous, and peculiar.

Stone Forest Scenic Area (Major Stone Forest, Minor Stone Forest, Bushao Mountain, Liziyuanjing, and Ancient Ganoderma) five parts and Shilin Karst Geological Research Museum

Major Stone Forest The entire scenic area consists of dense peaks, composing a stone basin. Stones here stands upright with have smooth lines, presenting to be cinerous. the highest independent peak is over 40 meters. There are typical scenic spots including “Lotus Peak”, “Swords Pool”, “Qianjunyifa”, “Jixiatongren”, “Xiangju Platform”,”Youlan Valley”, and “Phoenix Combing”; the most famous one is “Shilin attraction” inscribed by Long Yun while “Wangfeng Pavilion” is the best place to appreciate “forest sea”. When walking in the stone forest, people often get blocked by a peak; while it will be another scene after twists and turns. If visiting Major Stone Forest with no tour guide, you must take a map along with you as it is very easy to get lost in this “mystery”.

Minor Stone Forest Compared with dense Major Stone Forest; it is scattered, elegant, and beautiful. Wide and thick stones divide it into several gardens like screens. The most famous spot in Minor Stone Forest is Ashima. When evening comes with colorful lights on, this place becomes more colorful and attractive.

Bushao Mountain With many strange-shaped peaks scatter here, this is the place with the highest altitude in the while Stone Forest area.

Liziyuanjing is outside Huanlin Road. Strange-shaped pillars and stones on the barren mountain within miles gather or scatter with different heights, and there are not many tall trees competing height with stones, maintaining natural appearance. Here you can feel the complete difference between Major and Minor Stone Forests - completely original and boundless. There is an ancient cliff painting on the peak about 300 meters southeast to Huanlin Road, depicting people, beasts, things, stars and the moon, etc. According to relevant experts' investigation, this painting is about original religion, very similar to the people painted on the cliff painting by Zuo River, Guangxi. Perhaps this is the words that ancient Yi people left us!

Ancient Ganoderma
There is a stone peak of about 15 meters high on the top of the mountain by the side of Bimu Pond adjacent to Liziyuanjing. With big top and small bottom, it looks like a huge Ganoderma, hence the name. You may feel “all the mountains are small” if standing on its top during sunset.

The stone forest is not only a natural landscape, but also a humanistic landscape. As early as the Paleolithic Age, 800,000 years ago, there were traces of human activity in the stone forest. To this day, the Yi people are still using the annual "Dense Branch Festival" to remember and reproduce the social forms in which their ancestors lived, reproduce the cultural traditions of primitive society such as hunting, farming, singing and cooking, and show the colorful historical picture of the ancestors.

Complementing the beautiful and unique natural landscape of the stone forest is the Yi Sani culture represented by "Ashima". "Without fire and salt, it is not a meal; Without love and poetry, there is no life. "The true and pure love is as solid as a rock, and the girl as beautiful as gold has been sung for generations. The enthusiastic Sani people are proud of Ashima, the magnificent Yunnan is transmitted because of Ashima, and the antique China is romantic because of Ashima.

The Yi Sani people who have lived in the stone forest for generations are all born singers and dancers, they work and sing, live and dance, between the strange peaks and strange rocks, in the depths of the colorful clouds, they have created the world-famous Ashima national culture as amazing and touching as the stone forest: the long poem "Ashima" has become a classic of Chinese ethnic minority narrative long poems, the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage, translated into more than 20 languages and widely spread in many countries around the world; The movie "Ashima" is famous at home and abroad; the dance drama "Ashima" became a classic Chinese dance in the 20th century; "Guests from afar, please stay" sang the land of China and was designated as the representative song of Yunnan tourism; The annual Yi Traditional Torch Festival has been rated as one of the top ten festivals with the most development potential in China, ......and is known as the famous "hometown of song and dance", "hometown of wrestling" and "hometown of modern folk painting" in China.

June 24th in Chinese lunar calendar is the traditional Torch Festival of Yi people. At this time, Stone Forest will hold grand bullfight, wrestling and song and dance activities to celebrate. Yi people will dress in their traditional costumes to anticipate the celebration. At nightfall, the bonfire and torches will be lit up, and people will dance and sing around the bonfire. This is the best time to experience the ethnic culture of Yi people.