Baoshan Ancient Stone City

The remarkable community of Baoshan Ancient Stone City, usually called Baoshan, is labout 130km north of Lijiang. Baoshan Stone Village (baoshan shicheng) is located on a Herculean rock in the Jinsha River Valley. Virtually everything in the village is made of stone: stone ovens, stone water vats, stone beds, stone chairs and so on. The village is surrounded by cliffs on four sides with the Jinsha River flowing below and a small path leading to the outside world, one meter wide, creeps along the edge of the village. It comprises of more than one hundred families on the top of a gigantic rock. This town was built in the late 13th century (Yuan Dynasty). In the Naxi tongue, it is called "La Bai Lu Pan Wu". La Bai was the first local Naxi leader, who lives here. Lu Pan Wu means white stone village. This town has such a long history due to its unique geographic location. It occupied a dazzling site, high on a ridge overlooking the Upper Yangzi River (Jinsha River ), surrounded by tightly ascending terraced fields . In this town, you may feel amazed at the sight of many household items made of stone. Visitors may wonder where they do their farming of crops. They do their planting just below this uniquely perched village. Thus, this is an interesting and fun spot to visit, and it is fascinating to see the practicalities of life for the various groups of people living in this remote part of the world today.