Guilin is famed as the most scenic place under Heaven for its dramatically shaped Karst hills, fantastic caves, and limpid water.

Guilin is famed as the most scenic place under Heaven for its dramatically shaped Karst hills, fantastic caves, and limpid water. Visitors from all over the world are impressed and inspired by its beautiful landscape, and wonder how Mother Nature has created such a wonderful land.

In geographic terms, Karst Topography is a landscape shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite (source: wikepedia ). South China is a major Karst area in the world, and Guilin is the most typical and rare example of Karst Topography in terms of its scale and uniqueness.

Guilin area was a gulf several hundred million years ago. Salty sea water kept dissolving and wearing off the limestone layers, and slowly developed the original shapes of Guilin’s hills under water. In the movement of the earth's crust, the sea gave way to the land. Then about another 70 million years had passed, with the help of the natural elements of wind, rains, and rivers above and under ground, the isolated limestone peaks and fantastic stalagmite caves of Guilin have been developed.

Guilin is rich with rivers, and the water is limpid like mirrors reflecting the beautiful Karst hills. The Li River passing across the region is the soul of Guilin's natural beauty. The great Tang Dynasty poet Han Yu (768-824) was deeply inspired when cruising down the Li River of Guilin, and wrote down a famous line "the river winds like a green silk ribbon, while the hills are like jade hairpins".