Furong Cave, Wulong

Furong Cave opens from the steep bank of the Furong River in the gorge country of Wulong, south-east of Chongqing, and leads into a chamber-lined passage almost three kilometres long and in places 30 to 50 metres wide. What sets it apart is not only its scale but the range of what grows inside it: flowstone curtains, rafts of calcite on still pools, stalagmites, helictites twisting against gravity, coral-like and dog-tooth calcite crystals, and delicate gypsum flowers. Chinese sources count more than seventy kinds of cave deposit here, close to the full catalogue that speleologists have named.

The cave was found by local farmers in 1993 and opened to visitors the following year. Joint Chinese, British and American caving expeditions in 1994, 1996 and 2001 then mapped the wider system of passages and the underground river that drains the surrounding plateau. The limestone it is cut into was laid down in the Cambrian and Ordovician periods, around half a billion years ago. One of the best-known formations is a giant flowstone "stone waterfall" more than 20 metres across, with coral-like growths up to 120 centimetres long spreading from its foot. A side passage at the eastern end, known for its antler-like gypsum helictites, has been sealed off permanently to protect it.

The country above the cave is just as remarkable. Within roughly 20 square kilometres of plateau nearby there are more than fifty vertical shafts deeper than 100 metres, among them the Qikeng shaft, which drops about 920 metres and is counted as the deepest in Asia. In 2007 Furong Cave was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with the Three Natural Bridges and the Qingkou tiankeng as the Wulong Karst, one of the components of the South China Karst; it is often described as the first cave in China to be named a World Natural Heritage site.

Getting there

The cave lies on the Furong River near the town of Jiangkou, about 3 km away, and some 20 km from the centre of Wulong District, Chongqing. Chongqing Xiannüshan Airport (CQW), which serves Wulong, is about 33 km away.