Rivers, Lakes and Waterfalls

Some of the best-known rivers of East Asia flow through Yunnan. In the northwest three of them carve nearly parallel routes through the mountains less than a hundred kilometres apart-the Yangzi, the Mekong and the Salween. The Yangzi, known in Yunnan as the Jinshajiang, or River of Golden Sand, makes two great hairpin bends in Lijiang County, then turns sharply east south of Yongsheng. The Jinshajiang then runs along the prefectural border with Chuxiong for a while, briefly enters Sichuan, turns south back into Yunnan near Yongren, then east again, becoming the boundary between Sichuan and Yunnan until the northeast corner of Zhaotong Prefecture.

The other major river flowing into eastern China out of Yunnan is the Pearl, or West River. It begins just north of Qujing and empties into the sea at Guangzhou. It's not much more than a wide stream for much of its course in Yunnan, though. From above Qujing it flows more or less south, as the Nanpanjiang, until just above Kaiyuan, Then it turns northeast and exits Yunnan in southeast Luoping County.

Nujiang River

Several important rivers flow into Southeast Asia. Of these the greatest are the Nujiang (the name of the Salween in Chinese) and the Lancangjiang (Mekong). The Nujiang tumbles out of eastern Tibet to flow directly south through the prefecture named after it. Then it runs between the ranges of the Gaoligong.Mountains through Baoshan and enters Burma just east of Dehong.

The Lancangjiang runs down the western side of Diqing Prefecture, separated from the Nujiang by a long, high mountain range. Then it bends slightly southeast, forming the prefectural boundary between Lincang and Simao for part of its course, runs through Simao to enter Xishuangbanna and exits where China meets Laos and Burma. From there it continues through the Southeast Asian counties of Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Though bridged at many points, neither the Nujiang nor the Lancangjiang is navigable very far in Yunnan.

Other rivers flowing into Southeast Asia are the Daying and Ruili Rivers in Dehong, the Nandinghe in Lincang, which all go into Burma, and the Babianjiang and Yuanjiang, which go to Vietnam. The latter is better known by its English name-the Red River and in Vietnam flows.through Hanoi and empties into the sea near Haiphong. While running in a dry, narrow trench for much of its route in Yunnan, it has stretches of great beauty, where the terraces of Ailaoshan rise near its banks. In fact, most of the rivers in Yunnan first flow through high and relatively dry mountains and descend to verdant tropical plains, with points of great scenic beauty in between.

Equally pleasing to the eye, with more readily accessible viewpoints, are the big lakes in central and western Yunnan. Sizable bodies of water, not big enough to be marked on small provincial maps, mountain tarns and picturesque reservoirs pop up all over Yunnan, often playing a role in local legend and custom. The largest lake is Dianchi, near Kunming. At 360 sq km it ranks as China's sixth largest. It is 40 km long and at its maximum width 14 km. Passenger boats carry people from one shore to another, transport boats haul loads of rock from the quarries near the shores, while pleasure boats cruise, primarily in the northern part, and fishing boats meander all over. Off shore from the villages huge round traps float on the surface and a small fleet of skiffs awaits the proper hour, which varies according to the season, to be launched onto the lake to drag nets in the water.

The deepest body of water in Yunnan, and the second deepest in the country, is Fuxian Lake. In Chinese it means "fairies standing arm in arm," after a local legend. Its average depth is 87 metres, at its deepest measuring 155 metres. Such a depth gives Fuxianhu twelve times the storage capacity of Dianchi, in addition to a deep blue-green colour. Lakeside dwellers use large traps of split bamboo to catch fish here and in the smaller lake, Xingyunhu, just to the south of it, which flows into Fuxianhu.

Fuxian Lake

On the western shore of Xingyunhu fishermen use rod and line at the water's edge, or float just offshore in rubber inner tubes from automobile tires. At an average depth of 6 metres Xingyunhu is the most shallow of Yunnan's big lakes. A little further south., just north of Tonghai, lies the slightly bigger lake called Qiluhu. Local legend claims it was once a much bigger lake until the immortal monk Li Panfu used his staff to make a sinkhole on the eastern shore. This siphoned off much of the water and created a new expanse of farmland. Roughly the same size, 14 km long, backed by mountains to its north and beside a broad plain to its south, is Yilonghu, next to Shiping in northern Honghe Prefecture, the last of central Yunnan's chain of lakes.

The other significant lakes lie in the west. Yunnan's second largest, Erhai, 41 km long and 3-9 km wide, lies beside the Dali Plain. Low, barren, red earth hills rise on its eastern shore. The western side is flanked by a narrow, heavily populated plain backed by the towering, forested Azure Mountains (Cangshan), with peaks over 4000 metres. Fleets of single-sail fishing boats frequently ply the lake waters. Smaller, less active lakes lie near Eryuan and Jianchuan, both north of Dali. Over the prefectural border with Lijiang, north-northeast in Yongsheng County, sits the quiet lake called Chenghai. Almost due north of this, on the Sichuan-Yunnan border in Ninglang County's Lesser Cool Mountains (Xiaoliangshan), lies Lugu Lake, probably the most beautiful body of water in the entire province.

None of the big rivers drop significantly on their courses through Yunnan to create decent waterfalls. But many of the smaller rivers and tributaries do. All along the canyon carved by the upper Nujiang small feeder streams drop over cliffs before they reach the river, punctuating the route with long, thin, pretty waterfalls every several kilometres.

The biggest waterfall, in Yunnan, 30 metres wide and dropping 96 metres, is Dadieshui, the cataract formed by the Bajiang River in southwest Lunan County. The Jiulong Falls, northeast of Luoping, is nearly as impressive. Other attractive falls include the one near Babao, eastern Wenshan, where the cataract splits into several falls as it tumbles over the last boulders, the several cataracts at Huanglianhe, above Daguan in Zhaotong Prefecture, and the series of falls, big and small, on the Duoyi River south of Luoping, near the border with Guangxi.