Lijiang Travel Guide
Lijiang lies 570 km north-west of Kunming in Yunnan Province. It consists of three old towns, namely Dayan, Baisha and shuhe. Lijiang got its name from the Lishui (now Jinsha) River, which flows through the town. Lijiang, possibly the best preserved old town in China, is one of the last places where a visitor can witness and experience a historic, traditional urban culture. Remarkably, the old houses with stone foundations, plastered whitewashed brick walls, red wooden doors, shutters and balconies, and sloping tiled roofs, survived a recent earthquake without much damage, while the new concrete buildings were flattened. By taking advantage of its geographic location, Lijing has served as a center of economic and cultural exchanges between people of the Tibetan, Han, Bai and Naxi ethnic groups. Due to the unique culture and comfortable climate, it has been classified as a World-class Cultural Legacy by UNESCO, 'National-level Scenic Zone 'and a 'National Town of History and Culture'.
Geographic location
Lijiang is located at the foot of the snow-capped Yulong Mountains, which is in the southeastern part of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau known as the 'roof of the world' and the northwestern part of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. Lijiang covers 7485.2 square kilometers, 95% of which is mountainous area. It's located at 99o 30' E to 100o 50' E and 26o N to 27o 50' N with the altitude of 2,400 meters. There are two snow-capped Mountains, namely Yulong Mountain and Laojun Mountain. Besides, there are Jinsha and Lancang Rivers flowing though this area. There is the subtropical monsoon climate with the annual temperature of 12.6 Co and precipitation of 900 to 1,200 mm. Spring there lasts as long as 241 days and there is no hot summer.
People
There are 306,000 people in Lijiang. It is home to people of more than 20 minority ethnic groups, the bulk of whom are the Naxi. Each of these ethnic groups has a unique culture and history, which match into the beauty of the land, setting an example of a harmonious relationship between man and nature. China's languages are classified into four major linguistic families, and the Naxi belong to the Sino-Tibetan group. It is not uncommon to find those among the Naxi who can fluently speak two or three languages. Their native language is called Naxi or Nahsi, and the children are also taught Mandarin Chinese at school. A majority of the Naxi can both read and write Chinese. Naxi Nationality are the offspring of ancient Qiang people who in history wandered south or north along the gorges of the Hengduan Mountain range and settled down very early on the west band of Jinsha River at the upper reaches of the Changjiang River. The Naxi created a written language over1, 000 years ago using an extraordinary system of pictographs. The most famous Naxi text is the Dongba classic The Creation, and ancient copies of it and other texts can still be found in Lijiang, as well as in the archives of some and mediators between the Naxi and the spirit world. Their original religion, called Dongba after the name of its ritual specialists, resembles the nature worship and other concepts of pre-Buddhist Tibet. The Naxi ethnic group maintains its rich traditional culture, and the tens of thousands of ancient books written in Dongba characters are unique in the world's cultural history. It has aroused the interest of the world's scholars. Lijiang boasts 'the home of the Dongba culture'. The Dongba culture includes pictographic characters, scriptures, paintings, music and dances. The first classical Naxi orchestra was founded under Kublai Khan's patronage, and the music and tradition have remained unchanged for over seven centuries.Naxi people believe in Confucianism. You can easily converse with senior citizens who are full of wisdom on the street, or you can find exquisite calligraphy or paintings in an ordinary family home. Many people preserve precious thread-books in their wooden cupboards. However the main religion in Lijiang is still the Buddhism.
History
The history of Lijiang dates back to the South Song period (1127-1279AD). In 1253, Kublai, in his expedition to conquer the state of Dali, came to what is now
Lijiang after his troops crossed the Jinsha River by using inflated bags of animal hide. That explains why many names of places in the Naxi languages are transliterations of 'army camps,' 'drilling grounds,' etc. for the Mongolian language. In the early years of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368AD), there were about 1,000 families in Lijiang, which constantly grew in size during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Since the Qing Dynasty, Lijiang has been the distribution center for goods produced in northwest of Yunnan province. Tibetans send their woolen textiles and medicinal herbs here for shipment to other parts of China, and tea and articles for daily use from Xishuang Banna, Fengqing and Xiaguan of Yunnan province are sold to Tibetan areas via the town. During the Second World War, the Flying Tigers (a group of American pilots voluntarily helping China in fighting the Japanese invaders) built the Baisha Airport in the Lijiang area to implement what is known to historians as the 'Hump Operation.'
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