Shunan Bamboo Sea

Overview

About

The Shunan Bamboo Sea, formerly Wanlingqing, lies in the south where Changning and Jiang’an counties meet in Sichuan, 70 km south-east of Yibin and over 400 km south of Chengdu, 120 km² at 600 to 1,000 m, a scenic area of bamboo landscapes and historic sites. In the core area more than 70,000 mu of moso bamboo cover 28 ridges and over 500 hills, “ten thousand li of bamboo waves”, one of the four wonders of southern Sichuan with the dinosaurs, the stone forest and the hanging coffins.

The main sights are Carefree Valley, the Emerald Corridor, Xianyu Cave, Fairy Lake, Ink Stream and the Bamboo Sea Museum. Carefree Valley is a long narrow valley where the bamboo grows so thick and tall that it shuts out the sky. The area is also a famous Buddhist site of southern Sichuan, with old temples and cave shrines scattered through it. Xianyu Cave on Ca’er Rock on the county border, known for its peril and seclusion, is said to be the home of the fairy Yaoqing who planted the bamboo; the approach is a hundred metres of path built along the cliff edge, and the view over the bamboo sea is superb.

Besides moso there are over 50 kinds of bamboo, among them human-face, abacus, ci, mian, flower and concave bamboo; rare flowers include wintersweet, peach, plum, rhododendron, primrose, camellia, osmanthus, orchids and ferns; medicinal herbs; and rare animals such as the bamboo partridge, bamboo monkey, bamboo frog, the Chinese fire-belly newt and the “piano frog”.

The climate is pleasant, between 0 °C and 30 °C all year, averaging 15.5 °C with 345 frost-free days.

Getting there

Yibin to Changning to the Bamboo Sea (Wanling), then to the sights.