Mount Huangshan 黄山风景区

Mount Huangshan rises in the south of Anhui province, a granite massif of 72 named peaks. Its three tallest, Lotus, Guangming and Tiandu, all stand above 1,800 metres, with Lotus the highest at 1,864 metres. The mountain holds three UNESCO designations at once, as a World Cultural and Natural Heritage site, a Global Geopark and a Biosphere Reserve, and it is also a national scenic area and a 5A-rated attraction. Chinese writers have long set it beside the Yangtze, the Great Wall and the Yellow River as one of the country's defining landscapes, calling it a fairyland on earth and the finest mountain under heaven.

What visitors remember are the five features the mountain is known for: pines twisted into strange shapes, oddly weathered rocks, seas of cloud, hot springs and winter snow. The two halves of the mountain feel different. The front slopes are massive and imposing, the rear ones steeper and more delicate, a contrast that comes from eight hundred million years of geological history, including glacial traces. Forest covers almost all of the scenic area, and more than two thousand kinds of higher plants grow here.

The name is old and layered. The mountain was once called Yishan, and it took its present name in 747, during the Tang dynasty, after a legend that the Yellow Emperor gathered herbs and made himself immortal on its slopes.

Don't miss

• Guest-Greeting Pine, a shaped pine read as a symbol of welcome
• Lotus Peak, the highest of the three main summits at 1,864 metres
• Sea of clouds, mist and rime transforming the ridges
• Hot springs among the five celebrated features of the mountain
• West Sea Grand Canyon, a deep cut through the granite

Visiting tips

The summit climate is cool and changeable: the average temperature is 7.9°C, mist occurs on 259 days a year, and strong winds are common. Bring warm, windproof layers and rain protection, even in summer.