The 13 Most Breathtaking Natural Wonders in China

The towering sandstone pillars of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park inspired the floating Hallelujah Mountains in the film Avatar.

Over three thousand quartzite sandstone columns rise up through a sea of mist, draped in subtropical vegetation and connected by the world's longest and highest glass-bottomed bridge.

Granite pillars draped in twisted pines rise out of a sea of cloud at Yellow Mountain, the landscape that inspired centuries of Chinese ink painting.

Cable cars reach several viewpoints directly, so the classic misty-peaks view doesn't require a demanding climb.

Sunrise and sunset, when the cloud sea forms below the summits, are when the mountain looks most like the paintings it inspired.

Mineral-rich water turns this Sichuan valley's lakes an almost unnatural turquoise and emerald, layered with travertine terraces and stacked waterfalls.

Fallen trees, preserved in the clear, mineral-hardened water, are visible metres below the surface in the calmest pools.

Snow-capped peaks and autumn foliage frame the lakes depending on season.

The stretch of the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo is lined with thousands of karst limestone peaks rising straight out of the water, scenery that has appeared on China's 20-yuan banknote and inspired centuries of Chinese landscape painting.

A slow cruise or bamboo raft ride down the river passes fishing villages, water buffalo, and cormorant fishermen, the peaks growing more dramatic the closer you get to Yangshuo.

West Lake has been celebrated in Chinese poetry and painting for over a thousand years, a freshwater lake in Hangzhou ringed by pagodas, temples, arched bridges, and willow-lined causeways.

Ten classic viewpoints, with names like "Autumn Moon over the Calm Lake," have been fixed in the cultural imagination since imperial times, visited on foot, by bike, or by traditional boat.

Free access and a genuinely beautiful setting make it a place locals use daily.

Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest river canyons on earth, where the Jinsha River is squeezed between the snow-capped Jade Dragon and Haba mountains.

A two-day trekking trail along the high route delivers sweeping views of the gorge and terraced villages, while a lower road lets visitors drive to the roaring rapids at its narrowest point.

The trek has exposed cliff paths, but guesthouses along the way mean it needn't be rushed.

Striped mountains in shades of red, yellow, and blue layer across the landscape like abstract art, the result of mineral-rich sandstone deposited and folded over 24 million years.

Raised boardwalks at four numbered viewing platforms let visitors take in the full rainbow effect.

The Yuanyang rice terraces cascade down mountainsides across thousands of stepped fields, shaped over centuries by the Hani people using a water-management system fed by cloud forest above.

Once flooded ahead of spring planting, each terrace mirrors the sky like shattered glass, especially at sunrise and sunset.

Villages of traditional mushroom-shaped thatched houses sit among the terraces, still lived in rather than preserved as a display.

Huashan is one of China's Five Great Mountains and among the most demanding to visit, famous for the plank walk, wooden boards bolted to a sheer cliff on the South Peak with a harness the only thing between hikers and a very long drop.

Cable cars now reach most of the mountain's peaks, making the summit accessible without full-day climbing, but the plank walk remains an optional add-on for thrill-seekers.

Taoist temples cling to the ridgelines throughout.

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is a conservation centre set in bamboo forest, where giant and red pandas live in naturalistic enclosures large enough to actually roam rather than pace a small pen.

Cubs are most active in the cooler morning hours, tumbling and climbing before retreating to shade as the day warms, so an early visit matters here.

It's a research facility first and tourist site second, a genuine conservation success.

Mingsha Shan (Singing Sand Mountain) is a range of towering dunes on the edge of the Gobi Desert outside Dunhuang, famous for the crescent-shaped Crescent Lake spring that has survived at its base for over a thousand years without being buried by sand.

Visitors climb the dunes on rope ladders or ride camels along the ridgelines, and the sand is said to hum as it shifts underfoot.

It's a green oasis ringed by nothing but bare desert.

A 240-metre limestone cave in the hills of Guilin, lit throughout in saturated reds, greens and blues that turn the stalactites into something closer to stage design than geology.

A still pool near the end doubles every formation above it.

Ink inscriptions on the walls date back to the Tang dynasty.

A two-day trek along one of the world's deepest gorges, following a high trail above the roaring Jinsha River between the Jade Dragon and Haba Snow Mountains.

The path climbs through the notorious 28 Bends before easing past small guesthouses that serve as overnight stops with gorge-view balconies.

Sheer rock walls tower more than 2,000m above the river on either side of the trail.