The Most Beautiful Nature Sanctuaries in the People's Republic of China
8 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful nature sanctuaries in the People's Republic of China are Huanglong, Wulingyuan and Jiuzhaigou Valley. The list covers 8 nature sanctuaries. Last updated 13 October 2026.
China stretches from the roof of the world to subtropical karst, and few countries hold so many kinds of rock shaped so dramatically. The collision of India with Asia raised the Tibetan Plateau and cut gorges deep into it; ancient seabeds of limestone dissolved into towers and pillars in the humid south; and red continental sandstones weathered into the banded slopes Chinese geologists call danxia. Over centuries many of these landscapes also became sacred mountains and subjects of painting and poetry.
In Sichuan, Huanglong is a staircase of travertine pools tinted yellow, blue and green by calcite deposits, while nearby Jiuzhaigou Valley strings clear lakes and waterfalls between the villages that gave it its name. Wulingyuan in Hunan rises as a forest of quartz sandstone pillars, many of them crowned with trees, and Huangshan's granite peaks, twisted pines and sea of clouds shaped the classical image of a Chinese mountain.
Further afield, Zhangye Danxia Geopark in Gansu streaks its ridges with layers of red, orange and yellow sediment, the Shilin Stone Forest in Yunnan crowds grey limestone blades into a maze, and Mount Sanqing, a Taoist mountain in Jiangxi, lifts granite spires above its forests. In Tibet the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon bends around the massif of Namcha Barwa and counts among the deepest canyons on Earth.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huanglong | Protected area | ✓ |
| 2 | Wulingyuan | Protected area | ✓ |
| 3 | Jiuzhaigou Valley | National park | ✓ |
| 4 | Huangshan | Protected area | ✓ |
| 5 | Zhangye Danxia Geopark | Protected area | |
| 6 | Mount Sanqing | Mountain | ✓ |
| 7 | Shilin Stone Forest | Rock formation | ✓ |
| 8 | Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon | Canyon |
01 Huanglong
People's Republic of China32.741° N 103.831° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by ymyphoto from Pixabay The altitude is the main practical consideration. The whole route lies above 3,000 metres, so the climb is slow going for most people and altitude sickness is common. Boardwalks keep visitors off the fragile deposits, and a cable car can shorten the ascent. Many travellers combine Huanglong with Jiuzhaigou, which sits lower and makes a gentler place to acclimatise first. Summer brings the fullest water; early autumn brings colour to the forests.
Did you know? The Lotus Platform Waterfall pours over a travertine wall about 45 metres high and 19 metres wide.
02 Wulingyuan
People's Republic of China29.346° N 110.467° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by Vined from Pixabay The area is large, and it is worth planning which of its four parts to see before arriving.
Did you know? Although the scenery resembles limestone karst, the pillars were shaped by physical erosion, with frost and plant roots prying the sandstone apart, not by chemical dissolution.
03 Jiuzhaigou Valley
People's Republic of China33.200° N 103.900° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by HI-MXWG from Pixabay What makes the lakes worth the trip has less to do with colour than with clarity: the water is cold, mineral-rich and so transparent in places that entire fallen tree trunks are visible lying on the lakebed metres down, perfectly preserved rather than rotted, because the same calcium-carbonate-rich water that keeps the lakes so blue also essentially embalms whatever falls into them.
Did you know? At Pearl Shoal water spreads across a gently sloping travertine bank before plunging 28 metres over a waterfall about 310 metres wide.
04 Huangshan
People's Republic of China30.125° N 118.167° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by 12412158 from Pixabay What's less obvious from the summit is how much of Chinese landscape painting was built around this specific view. Since the Tang dynasty, painters and monks climbed Huangshan and came down having redefined what a mountain was supposed to look like on silk and paper — mist swallowing the base, pines clinging to impossible ledges, peaks stacked in layers that seem to recede into nothing.
Did you know? According to legend, the Yellow Emperor refined pills of immortality on the mountain before ascending to heaven from its peaks.
05 Zhangye Danxia Geopark
People's Republic of China · 27.5 km from Zhangye38.916° N 100.133° E
Image by eltonjohn1973 from Pixabay The hills change completely with the light. At midday the colours can look flat and chalky; in the hour before sunset, or after rain has darkened the rock, the stripes glow. In the Linze area a system of boardwalks and viewing platforms, linked by a sightseeing bus, keeps visitors off the fragile slopes.
Did you know? The geopark also protects the Nine Springs ophiolite, a slice of ancient ocean floor left by an Early Palaeozoic collision of the North China and Qaidam plates.
06 Mount Sanqing
People's Republic of China28.952° N 118.052° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by Afra_Jiang from Pixabay The forests are rich: more than 2,300 plant species grow on the mountain, which served as a refuge for plants and animals during the Ice Age, and among its wildlife are Tibetan macaques and pangolins.
Did you know? According to tradition, the alchemist Ge Hong worked on the mountain in the Eastern Jin dynasty in the 4th century, and a well attributed to him is still shown.
07 Shilin Stone Forest
People's Republic of China24.818° N 103.325° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
- UNESCO Global Geopark
CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0 In 2007 the Naigu area and the landscape around Suogeyi village were inscribed by UNESCO as part of the South China Karst, a serial World Heritage site that brings together some of the finest karst in the country. Shilin is also the heart of a Yi autonomous county, and the Torch Festival — held on the 24th day of the sixth lunar month, with dancing and wrestling — is its great public celebration.
Did you know? The 1964 film Ashima, based on the Sani epic of the same name, is regarded as China's first colour widescreen musical film.
08 Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon
People's Republic of China29.770° N 94.990° E
ping lin · CC BY-SA 3.0 For outsiders the inner gorge remained one of the least known places on earth well into the 20th century. The plant hunter Frank Kingdon-Ward pushed into it in 1924 searching for a rumoured giant waterfall and found instead a series of steep rapids. Only in 1998 did a small team including Ken Storm and Ian Baker, with Monpa guides, reach the largest falls of the deepest section. River runners came later still: the first descent of the upper gorge by kayak was completed in 2002.
Did you know? Frederick Bailey and Henry Morshead's 1913 expedition finally confirmed that the Tsangpo is the upper course of the Brahmaputra.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful nature sanctuaries in the People's Republic of China?
- On our list, Huanglong ranks first, followed by Wulingyuan and Jiuzhaigou Valley.
- Why is the water in Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong so colourful?
- Both are fed by karst water rich in dissolved calcium carbonate. It keeps the water unusually clear and builds travertine dams and pool floors, and together with algae and changing depth this gives each lake or pool its own shade of blue, green or turquoise.
- Which Chinese landscape inspired the floating mountains in Avatar?
- The sandstone pillars of Wulingyuan in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, are widely linked to the film, and in 2010 one of its pillars was renamed Avatar Hallelujah Mountain.
- How was the Stone Forest in Yunnan formed?
- Its limestone was laid down on the floor of an ancient sea, lifted above sea level and then dissolved by rain and groundwater along vertical cracks, leaving tall blades and pillars of rock.
- How many nature sanctuaries are on this list in the People's Republic of China?
- The list covers 8 nature sanctuaries.