Lijiang Travel Guide

Lijiang will spoil you with its cobbled streets, willows-lined canals, hurly-burly markets and waterside cafes. It's a great place worthy of a few days' away.

Lijiang in Naxi the language means "the bend of the JInsha River". Lijiang is located on the first bend of the Yangtze River. Lijiang Ancient Town was added in to the World Heritage list by the UNESCO on December, 4th, 1997 for its unique Naxi culture.

There are lots of interesting sights around Lijiang. The lofty snow-capped Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, 35 km north of Lijiang appears on almost every postcard of the area. The First Bend of the Yangtze River and the Tiger Leaping Gorge make good day excursions. Lijiang is also a practical hub for preparation for trips to the surrounding regions such as the Laojun Mountain and Lugu Lake. The crystal Lugu Lake and the unique Mosuo matriarchal culture flourishing on its shore is 7-8 hours from Lijiang. The Mosuo people still keep their unique way of life. Men and women are not united by marriage and have a casual cohabitation relationship.

In addition to the beautiful scenery, Lijiang is an old center for the Naxi people with rich and textured culture- the Dongba Culture. The small Naxi minority group with a population of 28,000 created the splendid Dongba culture over hundreds of years of social practice. In general, the Dongba Scriptures based on the Dongba Religion is a unique living pictographic script; a "living fossil".

From the time of the Tang Dynasty the Naxi people began to assimilate pieces of the Han culture from the Central China and the Tibetan culture from the northwest and gradually developed a culture of their own.

Lijiang is the start of Tea-Horse Road, a trade route linking China's west frontiers with central China. With a population of one million fifteen thousand Lijiang has jurisdiction over one old town and four counties including 22 minority nationalities which make up 57% of the whole population of the city. And among the 22 minority nationalities ten of them have a population of more than three thousand. They are as follows: Naxi, Yi, Lisu, Bai, Pumi, Dai, Miao, Tibetan Hui and Zhuang.

Lijiang Old Town, which was a famous city in the past, is located Northwest of Yunnan Province, blessed with beautiful scenery. The old town has a long history, and a brilliant culture. It’s also an old city of national minorities rarely found in China, which has been preserved intact.

The Lijiang old town is a central town located in the Lijiang autonomous county of the Naxi ethnic minority in Yunnan province. Lijiang County is located in the northwest of Yunnan province, on the transitional tract from the southern tip of the Cross-Mountains on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the north of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. Affected by the south Asian plateau wind, its climate shows distinctive dry seasons and rainy season. Within the county, there live more than 10 nationalities: Naxi, Bai，Yi，Tibetan，Miao，etc. Of them, the Naxi people account for about 66.7% of the entire population there.

Beautiful Scenery of Lijiang
Lijiang’s scenery are also unique and unconventional. In Yufeng (Jade Peak) Temple there is an old, giant camellia tree of more than 500 years old, which can put forth thousands of flowers, so that it is called a “Ten-Thousand-Flower-Camellia”. Therefore it is known as “the First Tree in the world”.

The mystical Dongba hieroglyph is known as “the only living hieroglyph in the world”.

The old Naxi music with noble elegant lingering charm is thought to be the “living fossil of the Chinese classical music”. Lugu Lake with its deep and transparent water is known as “the pearl on the plateau. The Mosuo villages on the shore of Lugu Lake and the folk customs and the culture are unique in the world and always make a truely unique experience for tourists.

There are still some matriarchal families. The Mosuo people are now still keeping the “Axia” marriage customs by which a young man doesn’t get married and a girl is not to be married off.

The Ancient Town of Lijiang, also called Dayan Town, was first set up in the Song Dynasty, and has a history of almost a thousand years. The town is famous in China for its old and simple architectural style and the elegant art for the layout of the town. It’s also well-known to the world because “each of the houses is built by the stream and surrounded by willow trees”.

Therefore, Dayan Town is praised as the “Oriental Venice” and “Suzhou on the Plateau”. Sifang Street (Four Square is the center of the ancient town. Since ancient times, Sifang Street has been a collecting and distributing center of all kinds of products with travelers and traders coming and going.

The Yulong (Jade Dragon) Snow Mountains are the southernmost modern marine glaciers in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere. There are all together 13 peaks along the range of the mountains, which stretch for over 35km from south to north. The summit, Shanzidou（Fan Steep）, is 5596 meters above sea level. Looked at from far away, you can see the mountains covered with snow, which look like a silver dragon with the clouds curling up in the middle. Because of this, it’s named Yulong (Jade Dragon) Snow Mountain.

The old town of Lijiang today is no longer the “forgotten realm”. The warm-hearted and hospitable Lijiang people from different ethnic nationalities cordially welcome friends from both home and abroad, and the magnificent and mysterious Jade Dragon Snow Mountain is opening its arms to the world.