National Parks of ChinaOverview
| Designation | UNESCO World Heritage (mixed, 1990) National Park of China (first batch) AAAAA tourist attraction |
| Province | Anhui |
| Location | Southern Anhui |
| Latitude, longitude | 30.1, 118.2 Google Maps |
| Highlights | Granite peaks, sea of clouds |
| Top sights | Shixin Peak, Tiandu Peak, the North Sea and West Sea of clouds |
| Area | 154 km² |
| Highest point | 1,864.8 m |
| Nearby cities | Nanjing, Hangzhou, Hefei |
| Nearby sites | Mount Jiuhua, Fuchun River, Xin’an River and Thousand Island Lake, Mount Qiyun, West Lake, Hangzhou, Mount Lu (Lushan), Mount Sanqing, Mount Jianglang |
| Themes | Famous mountains, Mountains, Peaks, Rock formations, Cliffs, Hot springs & geothermal, Cascades, Taoism, Stamps, Cable cars |
About
Huangshan, anciently called Yishan, lies in southern Anhui and heads the three great mountains of China; legend says the Yellow Emperor refined the elixir of immortality here. The Ming traveller Xu Xiake wrote: “After the Five Sacred Mountains you look at no other mountain; after Huangshan you look at no other sacred mountain.”
Huangshan’s “four wonders” are its strange pines, grotesque rocks, sea of clouds and hot springs. The three main peaks are Lotus Peak (1,864 m), Bright Summit (1,860 m) and Tiandu (Celestial Capital) Peak (1,810 m). Of the ten famous pines, the Guest-Greeting Pine below Jade Screen Peak is the best known.
Around Bright Summit and Lotus Peak is the “Heavenly Sea” of clouds, with the East, West, Front and Back Seas around it.
Stamps
In 1963 China Post issued a set of 16 stamps, “Huangshan”: Jade Screen Peak, the Guest-Greeting Pine, pines and rocks of the Back Sea, Qingliang Terrace, Tiandu Peak from afar, Scissors Peak, the Ten-Thousand Pine Forest, Flower Growing from a Dream Brush, Lotus Peak, cloud tide of the West Sea, ancient pines, cloud tide of the East Sea, Stone Bamboo Shoot Peak, Stone Monkey Watching the Sea, Lion Grove and the Three Isles of Penglai.
In 1997 a set of eight “Huangshan” stamps was issued: Huangshan at dawn, peaks of the West Sea, flying rock amid clouds, clouds over the North Sea, Jade Screen, Flower Growing from a Dream Brush, Tiandu Peak above the clouds and the Isles of Penglai.
The 17th stamp of the 1981 definitive set R21 “Scenery of the Motherland” shows Huangshan.
Travel information
Admission: 248 yuan (2007); 120 yuan from 1 December 2007 to 29 February 2008. Low season is 1 December to the end of February, when all attractions in Huangshan City give 40% off.
From 1 April 2008 the cable cars went from 65 yuan (high season) / 55 yuan (low season) to 80 / 65 yuan per ride.
News
On 9 February 2008 a Hong Kong tourist who tried to cross the West Sea area off the trails was trapped and rescued after 12 hours.
In January 2006 the Guest-Seeing-Off Pine in front of Jade Screen Pavilion, one of the ten famous pines, died. It was 4.8 m tall and about 450 years old.
Map
Map drawn by this site’s map program: roads and names from OpenStreetMap, terrain from Mapterhorn (Copernicus 30 m elevation).