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Popular Attractions in Yunnan
The last wild elephants of China live in the tropical rainforest of Xishuangbanna and Banna Wild Elephant Valley is the place where these amazing animals can be seen most often.
Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was founded in 1959 and is located in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, covering an area of 900 ha. Over ten thousand species of tropical plants are preserved in its 34 living collections.
Just north of Dali Old Town the cozy town of Xizhou can be found right at the shores of Erhai Lake and the Wanhua Brook. Historically, it was a military fortress of Nanzhao Kingdom and a temporary palace of the King of Nanzhao.
Yuanmou Earth Forest is a wonderland area of clay formations which developed in the past 1.5 million years. This scenic area is located 210 km northwest of Kunming. Plunging into this hidden world, you will be bewitched by the spectacular clay formations, which project from the ground abruptly and glisten like yellow crystals. Coming in overwhelming quantities, they vary in shapes, heights and volumes. Seen separately, each is a piece of artwork with indescribable charm. Viewed as a whole, they form an intricate maze imbued with mysterious air and sublime beauty. From those ingenious minds, they prefer to picture Yuanmou Earth Forest as a dilapidated golden monastery, a desolate gothic church or a giant shrine impaired by fierce bombardments.
Yuantong Temple is the most famous Buddhist temple in Kunming. It is located in a protected natural depression and in recent years it has been expanded, with money from Thailand. In the 1950s, it hosted a grand ceremony to greet and send on the sacred teeth of the Buddha and so became important in Southeast Asia.
Yunnan Ethnic Villages, situated six kilometres south of Kunming's city centre is a 1.5 km2 theme park bordering on the south by the Dianchi Lake and on the west by the famous Western Hills.
Yunnan Nationalities Museum, situated at the banks of Dianchi Lake and right next to the Ethnic Villages Park in Kunming, covers an area of 133,300 square metres. Open to the public with a gross floor area of 30,000 square metres, the whole complex is shaped like a cloistered courtyard. As a standing council unit of the Museums Association of China and a member of the Southwest China Museum Association, it is rated as a national first-class museum, the largest nationalities museum in China and a famous museum in Asia.
The New Yunnan Provincial Museum is located in Kunming’s south on Guangfu Road in Guandu District, right across the street of Guandu Old Town. The museum houses an exhibition centered on Yunnan's ethnic minorities, as well as a collection of artifacts from tomb excavations at Jinning on the southern rim of Dianchi Lake.
Yuxi is a prefecture-level city in Yunnan Province.The administrative center of Yuxi is Hongta District. Yuxi is approximately 90 km south of Kunming. Near Yuxi city is Fuxian Lake, the second-deepest lake in China, where there have been discovered ancient fossils that are now in the possession of the Yuxi museum. There also are three other lakes around the city. They are Xinyun Lake, Qilu Lake, Yangzong Lake.
Zhoucheng Village is the largest and the farthest northern village of Dali City. The village has 7,571 inhabitants of 1,470 families. The entire village is in a square shape with row upon row of houses. The Yunnan Tibetan highway stretches along the village. Situated at the foot of Cangshan Mountain, the village is not far from the Butterflies' Fountain and Erhai Lake.