The Most Beautiful Canyons and Gorges in Asia

18 places in 13 countries · updated 14 October 2026

1. 01 Tiger Leaping Gorge

   People's Republic of China27.230° N 100.140° E

   • UNESCO World Heritage
   • UNESCO natural beauty

   

   The name comes from a story, not a survey: a tiger, cornered by hunters with the river roaring below and the gorge walls closing in, is said to have leapt from the bank onto a boulder sitting mid-channel at the narrowest point — barely 25 meters across — and from there onto the far side to freedom. Two separate spots along the gorge claim to be that exact place, and the boulder at the upper one is still pointed out to visitors as the Tiger Leaping Stone.

   Did you know? In the early 1980s four rafters set off down the gorge and were never seen again; the river here is considered unnavigable.

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2. 02 Makhtesh Ramon

   Israel30.579° N 34.818° E

   

   The result is a geological cross-section open to the sky. The floor and walls expose rock layers up to about 200 million years old, from the time when the Negev lay under the Tethys Ocean. In the north-east, the Ammonite Wall was once studded with spiral fossils of those ancient seas, though many have been taken. In the middle of the makhtesh stands HaMinsara, "the Carpentry", a hill of sandstone and quartzite that has split into polygonal prisms, so that it looks like a stack of timber.

   Did you know? A whole family of extinct bivalves, Ramonalinidae, is named after the makhtesh, where it was found in Middle Triassic rocks.

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3. 03 Kadisha Valley

   Lebanon · 20.5 km from Tripoli34.283° N 35.952° E

   

   The Kadisha river has carved the gorge over a distance of some 35 km through the North Governorate, between the districts of Bsharri and Zgharta. For centuries its inaccessible slopes drew hermits and monks who sought solitude, and above all it became a refuge for the Maronite Church. The monastery of Qannoubin, in the depths of the valley, served as the seat of the Maronite patriarch from the fifteenth century for several hundred years.

   Did you know? An earlier Mamluk campaign under Sultan Baibars had already reached the region in 1268, fifteen years before Qalawun's.

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4. 04 Three Gorges

   People's Republic of China · 4.4 km from Fengjie31.043° N 109.561° E

   

   The western entrance, Kuimen Gate, where the river squeezes between two mountains at the start of Qutang Gorge, is the image printed on the ten-yuan banknote, and above it stands Baidicheng, the White Emperor City, associated with Liu Bei of the Three Kingdoms period. The gorges have been praised in Chinese literature for well over a thousand years. The geographer Li Daoyuan, writing under the Northern Wei dynasty, described cliffs so high that the sun showed only at noon, and the Tang poet Li Bai wrote of leaving Baidicheng and speeding past thousands of mountains to the cries of monkeys on both banks.

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5. 05 Charyn Canyon

   Kazakhstan · 36.7 km from Chundzha43.362° N 79.091° E

   

   The best-known section is the Valley of Castles, a dry side gorge carved by meltwater rather than by the river itself. Around three kilometres long and up to about 100 metres deep, it is walled by eroded pillars that do look like the ruins of fortifications, and a path of roughly two kilometres leads along its floor down to the Charyn. The wider canyon system is usually described as five distinct canyons — besides the Valley of Castles there are the Temirlik, Yellow, Red and Bestamak canyons — each with its own character and colour. The rocks record millions of years of deposition and uplift, with layers of sandstone and white limy marls exposed in the cliffs.

   Did you know? One interpretation traces the name Sharyn to a Turkic word meaning steep bank or cliff.

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6. 06 Wadi Mujib

   Jordan · 33.5 km from Al Karak31.466° N 35.573° E

   

   The canyon's beauty is best appreciated from within. The Siq Trail, the best known of the reserve's water trails, leads into the gorge from the shore of the Dead Sea: visitors wade and scramble upstream against the current between tall walls smoothed by floods. Light falls in from a narrow strip of sky, and the walk ends at a waterfall that blocks the gorge. It is a short trail, two to three hours there and back, but it feels like entering a different world from the bright, salt-crusted shore only minutes away.

   Did you know? The reserve began as a breeding site for the Nubian ibex: founder animals from San Diego Zoo Safari Park arrived in 1989.

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7. 07 Ein Avdat

   Israel30.826° N 34.766° E

   

   The canyon is part of Nahal Zin, the largest dry riverbed of the Negev, which runs for some 120 kilometres from the edge of Makhtesh Ramon north and then east; erosion carved this section into a gorge. Several springs feed it. At the southern end, Ein Ma'arif drops through a series of falls and pools, overlooked by the remains of a Byzantine fortress. Further north, Ein Avdat itself is a waterfall about 15 metres high that pours into a pool some 8 metres deep, and near the northern entrance is Ein Mor, named after myrrh.

   Did you know? David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, and his wife Paula are buried on a cliff edge overlooking the canyon's Zin Valley.

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8. 08 Qutang Gorge

   People's Republic of China · 4.4 km from Fengjie31.043° N 109.562° E

   

   At the upstream end of the gorge stands Baidicheng, the White Emperor City, an ancient fortress town on a hill above the river. It is remembered as the place where Liu Bei, one of the great figures of the Three Kingdoms period, died, and memorial temples there keep his story alive. For centuries the passage of the gorge was a feat of labour: in the Han dynasty a path was cut along the cliffs for the haulers who dragged boats upstream against the current, and a line of rectangular holes in the rock face, known as the Meng Liang Stairway, records another early attempt to climb the walls.

   Did you know? Tang poets Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi and Liu Yuxi all wrote about this stretch of river, earning Fengjie the nickname City of Poetry.

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9. 09 Sulak Canyon

   Russia · 30.4 km from Buynaksk43.010° N 46.828° E

   

   Erosion here has exposed a long sequence of rock layers: deposits from the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary periods come to the surface along the walls, and fossils occur in each of them. The river has also been harnessed for power. Within the canyon system stands the Chirkey Dam, a concrete arch 232.5 m high and 338 m long, built between 1964 and the late 1970s and the tallest arch dam in Russia; its reservoir stretches for about 40 km behind it, and the turbines of its 1,000-megawatt power station sit at the foot of the wall.

   Did you know? The Sulak is formed where the Avar Koysu and Andi Koysu rivers meet, then runs about 169 km to the Caspian Sea.

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10. 10 Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon

    People's Republic of China29.770° N 94.990° E

    

    That vertical range compresses a whole continent of climates into a single valley. Lowland tropical forest at the bottom gives way, belt by belt, to subalpine coniferous forest and finally to alpine shrubland and tundra beneath the glaciers. The forests hold some of the tallest trees in Asia: in 2023 Chinese scientists measured a South Tibetan cypress here at 102.3 metres, then the tallest tree recorded on the continent. The Chinese government has protected the area as the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon nature reserve.

    Did you know? Kinthup eventually escaped and launched the logs four years late, but his warning letter went astray and nobody downstream was watching for them.

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11. 11 Wadi Shab

    Oman22.839° N 59.245° E

    

    The lagoon at the mouth is a recent feature. In 2007 Cyclone Gonu tore through the valley and left banks of gravel several metres high across its entrance; the water ponded behind them and now reaches from wall to wall. High above it, the coastal highway between Muscat and Sur crosses the mouth of the wadi on a tall bridge. From the far shore a footpath follows the stream bed upstream, sometimes on rock ledges, sometimes through the water itself, for about an hour's walk. The valley ends in a series of deep pools, and at the last of them a narrow gap in the rock leads, for those who swim through, into a small cave where a waterfall drops under a shaft of daylight.

    Did you know? An Italian archaeological mission first identified the prehistoric site at the wadi, known as Wadi Shab-GAS1, in the 1980s.

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12. 12 Marble Rocks

    India · 16.8 km from Jabalpur23.131° N 79.796° E

    

    Local memory keeps the time when the gorge was much narrower: one part is still called Bandar Kudni, "the monkeys' leap", from the days when monkeys could jump from one side to the other. Rowing boats take visitors up between the walls, and full-moon nights are considered the finest time to be on the water. Kartik Purnima brings ritual bathing and boating, and Sharad Purnima is associated with healing. Close by, the river narrows and plunges about 30 metres at Dhuandhar Falls; the name joins the Hindi words for smoke and flow, after the cloud of spray the fall throws up. A cable car crosses the gorge near the falls.

    Did you know? The gorge is often listed with Taiwan's Taroko Gorge as one of the few river canyons in the world cut through marble.

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13. 13 Wadi al-Disah

    Saudi Arabia27.631° N 36.549° E

    

    The contrast is the point. Above, wind and water have shaped bare rock into columns and steep walls; below, date palms crowd together with citrus and jujube, and the stream banks are thick with tall grasses, papyrus, oleander, henna bushes and mint. In places the water collects into clear pools, and one meeting of several springs is known locally as the Blue Eye. Walking or driving the valley means moving constantly between shade and glare, and in the low sun of early morning or late afternoon the cliffs turn deep orange against the dark green of the palms.

    Did you know? Traces of human presence in the valley system have been dated back to around 3000 BCE.

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14. 14 Yangykala Canyon

    Turkmenistan40.632° N 54.927° E

    

    The canyon lies in the Balkan Region, roughly 160 km east of the Caspian port of Türkmenbaşy and some 165 km north of Balkanabat, in arid country with no settlement of any size nearby. Its banded cliffs are layers of sedimentary rock, much of it limestone, worn into bizarre shapes by water, and the floor of the canyon is thought to have once been flooded by the waters of the Garabogazköl, the great lagoon of the Caspian that lies to the north-west. Sometimes described as the Grand Canyon of Central Asia, Yangykala is part of a wider landscape of escarpments and gorges, including the less-known Yangysuw canyon nearby.

    Did you know? Garabogazköl, the lagoon whose waters once reached the canyon floor, is about ten times saltier than the open ocean, comparable to the Dead Sea.

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15. 15 Taroko Gorge

    Taiwan · 22.9 km from Hualien City24.177° N 121.519° E

    

    What rewards a slow look is the stone itself. Wet after rain, the walls show bands and swirls of grey, white and dark green where the original layers were folded under pressure, and the riverbed below is strewn with pale boulders polished smooth by floods. At Swallow Grotto (Yanzikou) the cliffs are pocked with small holes worn by water, and swifts and swallows nest in them and stream in and out above the torrent. At the Tunnel of Nine Turns the road and footpath twist through the rock face with the opposite wall almost within reach. Higher up, the Zhuilu Cliff rises sheer above the river, and a narrow old trail, barely wider than a footstep in places, clings to its face.

    Did you know? The Liwu River has changed course three times, once by stream capture and twice when landslides dammed it, leaving terraces where villages now stand.

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16. 16 Chah Kuh Canyon

    Iran26.686° N 55.537° E

    

    The canyon is about a hundred metres deep. At its northern end it is broad and gently sloped, with a U-shaped profile, but towards the south it closes into a steep V-shaped slot that is hard to pass. The rock is a calcareous sandstone with interbedded layers of red marl, silt and limestone, sedimentary rocks belonging to the Zagros range. Slightly acidic rainwater has slowly dissolved the calcium carbonate that binds the rock, first opening small fissures and then, over very long periods, enlarging them into the hollows, alcoves and galleries that cover the walls.

    Did you know? In 2006 Qeshm became the first geopark in the Middle East recognised under the UNESCO-backed Global Geoparks Network.

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17. 17 Takachihokyo

    Japan32.701° N 131.301° E

    

    The gorge is volcanic in origin. Pyroclastic flows from Aso – one about 120,000 years ago and another about 90,000 years ago – filled the old river valley with deposits that welded together as they cooled, and the cooling produced the striking columnar jointing seen in the walls. The Gokase River then cut down through this rock to the slate and sandstone beneath, carving the narrow V-shaped gorge. The Manai Falls are counted among Japan's Top 100 Waterfalls, and other cascades along the gorge include Tamadare and Araragi. Natural potholes in the riverbed are known as Nanatsugaike, the "seven ponds".

    Did you know? Legend says the slain Kihachi came back to life after burial, so his body was cut into three and buried in separate mounds around the town.

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18. 18 Oirase Steam

    Japan40.525° N 140.975° E

    

    The valley is a product of volcanism. Lake Towada fills a double caldera formed by eruptions of the Towada volcano, which built up thick deposits of pumice and ash that hardened into welded tuff. When the caldera rim gave way at Nenokuchi, where the lake now drains, the resulting flood cut a deep U-shaped valley through this plateau, leaving sheer rock walls and the falls seen today. The upper section near the lake is sometimes called the "waterfall road" for the density of its cascades: Choshi Otaki, about 7 m high and 20 m wide, is said to stop fish from swimming up into the lake, and Kudan-no-taki falls about 15 m in nine steps.

    Did you know? For about a decade, officials who wanted the lake's water for hydropower and irrigation fought conservationists, and the 1936 national park emerged as a compromise between them.

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