The Brief Introduction of Wanhuayan Scenic Spot

Wanhuayan scenic spot is located in southwest of Chenzhou city where is about 12kms from the central urban area. It was opened to the public in May 1987 with an area of 95square kilometers, including 80square kilometers tourism development areas.

Wanhuayan scenic spot is large scale subterranean river karst cave which is still growing. The main branches which have been explored are over 9kms, 2.245kms of which are opened to the public. The subterranean river is throughout the cave that helps to bring fresh air to the cave and keeps constant temperature of 19℃ at all seasons. There are different spaces in the caves with homogeneous distribution of secondary chemical sediments and different species which are valuable for scientific research, exploration and tourism. The karst snake, karst lion, karst forest, karst field, and other 30kinds of natural karst shapes enabled the cave with wonderful features. The colonnades, window decoration, arch, fantastic rock, embossment, pool, water cart, fall and other sceneries outside the cave grant it with more colorful attractions. The natural landscape and folk garden art are well melt in Wanhuayan scenic spot. “Underwater crystalline cone” of the cave which is honored as “national treasure” is rare to be seen in the world. “Monument for promoting agriculture” and Ming Dynasty’s wall relics were approved as Hunan provincial cultural relics, and Tashan’s “cliff inscriptions” is being proceeded to the application of Hunan provincial cultural relic.

March 1988 and February 2005, Sino-America joint expedition team took exploration trips to Wanhuayan cave for two times and praised that Wanhuayan “can be comparable to all most splendid caves of the world”. In 2004, Wanhuayan develop cave drift which would be “the first cave drift of the world”. This 2kms long and 5meters wide drifting path is with 87meters fall, which greatly attracts thousands of visitors to enjoy this exciting and romantic trip. In 2007, the 13th national cave seminar was held in Wanhuayan. All experts who attended the seminar highly praised it. In 2009, Wanhuayan landscape fully launched the construction of establishment of national 4A landscape and national scenic resort. Followed with 22years scientific operation and management handled out by the management center of Wanhuayan landscape, it has become one of the most important landscapes of Chenzhou city even Hunan province and won different awards:

In 1991: it was selected as one of first batch of key landscapes of Hunan province;

In 2001: it was qualified with international ISO9001 quality management system certification;

In 2002: as one of the parts of Feitian mountain geological park, Wanhuayan landscape was listed as one of the 33 members of 2nd batch of national geological parks;

In 2004: it was listed as a scientific research base by karst geology research institute of Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and was listed as Hunan provincial civilized tourism landscape;

In 2006: “monument of promoting agriculture” which was set in Wanhuayan landscape was evaluated as Hunan provincial culture relic protection site;

In 2007: an upgrading project was handled out in the landscape and the 13th national cave seminar was successfully held there;

In 2008: it was evaluated as Chenzhou municipal “youth civilization”;

In 2009: it was rewarded as Chenzhou municipal “top ten civilized” window units;

In 2010, it was evaluated as national 4A tourism landscape by the State Tourism Bureau and was approved as the seventh batch of national scenic resort by the State Council.

1. Historic figures

Wanhuayan landscape was used to be named as Tanshanyan. The earliest literary inscription of it was a poem entitled as “Tanshanyan” by Ruan Yue- an officer of Chenzhou in Song Dynasty. According to Hu Han- another officer of Chenzhou in Wanli of Ming Dynasty, the name of Wanhuayan was inscribed by Zhang Shi- a famous Neo-Confucianism scholar of Southern Song Dynasty. Zhang Jiutan- a member of the imperial Academy of Qing Dynasty and poet and some other scholars agreed with Hu’s opinion. “Travels of Xu Xiake” stated that Xu aimed to find “Wanhuayan” after he came down from Qitianling. An archaeological survey which was carried out in 1985 confirmed that the carved letters “Wanhuayan” in the top of the cave was made out by Yang Chang- an officer of Chenzhou in the third year of the reign of Emperor Zhizheng of Yuan Dynasty (AD1266) and written down by Li Pu-another officer of Chenzhou at the same time. The confirmed date of the name of Wanhuayan is still under exploration. Wanhuayan became more popular afterward and attracted many famous people to gather there. Some poems were figured out by them to praise the peculiar landscapes of it. Wanhuayan scenic resort became one of the members of International Landscape Karst Cave Association in 2000. It was approved as national geological park by the State Ministry of Land and Resources in 2001. It was approved to be national scenic resort by the State Council and was successfully established as national 4A tourism landscape in 2009.

2. Traffic and geography

Wanhuayan scenic spot is located in southwest of Chenzhou city where is about 12kms from the central urban area. Its transportation is very convenient. It is just about 5kms drive from Chenzhou Xi high speed train station, Xiarong expressway, 107 belt highway and Chenzhou Avenue. 9 lines of public bus are available to transfer to the scenic spot. Furthermore, the roads and footpaths interior of the scenic spot are distributed reasonably and conveniently. There are 2 ecological parking lots with over 5000square meters are available in the spot.

3. Landscape features

Both natural landscapes and cultural landscapes are well melt together in Wanhuayan scenic spot that it is with abundant landscape resources. Different species of karst landscapes with different shapes are available there. There are more than 30 kinds of secondary calcification sedimentation in Wanhuayan, accounting for 90% of the explored kinds of China. Fresh air flows in the cave and it keeps constant temperature of 19℃ at all seasons. The spaces of caves Wanhuayan are changeful. The most splendid one is the underwater crystalline cone which was first discovered in our country and secondly discovered in the world. It is a treasure of karst geology. Cai Laiyi-a scholar of Qing Dynasty once created a poem to praise Wanhuayan as a fairy land dropped into the world. Lund- Bulegimont- the team leader of America’s cave scientific research and exploration team appraised that Wanhuayan “can be comparable to all most splendid caves of the world”.