Huangguoshu Waterfall

Overview

About

The Huangguoshu scenic area lies on the Baishui River, upper reaches of the Dabang, in Zhenning Buyi and Miao Autonomous County, Guizhou, 45 km from Anshun and 150 km from Guiyang. It has waterfall groups, rivers, caves, peaks, underground streams, cliffs and gorges, the Huangguoshu waterfall above all.

The Huangguoshu Great Waterfall is the largest in China: 68 m high, 74 m with the cascade above it, and 81 m wide, with the Water Curtain Cave halfway up and Rhinoceros Pool below. It is most spectacular in the summer rains, when spray flies more than a hundred metres and drifts over the street of Huangguoshu, the “silver rain on the golden street”.

Around it lies a group of 18 waterfalls, the “nine levels and eighteen falls”, among them the Silver Chain, Dishuitan, Doupotang, Luositan and Xingxia falls.

The Silver Chain Falls, made up of many small cascades over 40 m in all, are the most beautiful in the area. Doupotang, 1 km upstream, is 21 m high and 105 m wide, the widest of the group; in flood it whistles like a steam siren, the “roaring falls”. The Dishuitan falls on the upper Baling River, 1 km west of Huangguoshu, drop 410 m in seven steps; the last, Gaotan, 63 m wide and 130 m high, is the tallest of the group.

Stamps

In 2001 China Post issued “Huangguoshu Waterfalls”, three stamps and a souvenir sheet: the Silver Chain, Doupotang and Dishuitan falls, and the Huangguoshu waterfall on the sheet.

The fourth stamp of the 1981 definitive set R21 “Scenery of the Motherland” shows Huangguoshu.