“The river winds like a green silk ribbon, while the hills are like jade hairpins”. Han Yu (768-824 A.D.)
The landscape that surrounds Guilin contains some of the most spectacular karst scenery in the world. These limestone peaks rising out of the swirling mists have been a tourist attraction for over a thousand years with some of the earliest rock inscriptions dating back to 729 A.D. To understand just how they came about we have to go back much further.
Once upon a time the whole Guilin region was under the sea. Calcified deposits on the sea bed formed Devonian limestone, which over millions of years was honed into various shapes by the ocean currents. Seismic activity caused the sea water to dissipate leaving the limestone exposed to the elements. Over 40 million years of wind, rain and river erosion have seen to it that most of the bedrock has been eaten away, leaving behind a series of pinnacles.
Two main types of karst formation dominate the Guilin region, the fenglin, or isolated peaks and the fengcong peak clusters. Fenglinpeaks rise vertically like trees to heights of up to 250 feet, whilst the fengcong are more conical with one hill joining the next via a depression. They occur when surface streams lose their water to underground cave systems below the water table. The peaks emerge out of the remaining land that hasn’t been eroded. As water flushes deeper into the limestone the water table drops further and caves continue to grow. These large interconnecting caverns are filled with stalagmites and stalactites, as a result of minerals being deposited through the underground drainage. The landscape around Guilin is dominated by fenglin, which gradually become densefengcong by the time the Li River reaches the town of Yangshuo.