Yiwu Poplar Forest 伊吾胡杨林

About Yiwu Poplar Forest

The stand lies 10 km east of Naomaohu Township in Yiwu County, Hami, and covers 476,000 mu. The municipal government describes it as one of only three remaining stands of Euphrates poplar in the world and says experts describe it as having the most distinctive trunk forms on earth and as the oldest and the closest to a city of any poplar forest; the county culture, sports, broadcasting and tourism bureau calls it the most concentrated poplar forest within China. Those comparisons are the two government bodies' own wording and are reported here as their claims.

The scenic area is organised as one main line and six zones, with the visitor service centre, the Ten-Thousand-Year Root Carving zone, Gonggong Mountain, the Pterosaur Home, Sunrise East Mountain, Poplar Old Man and the Camel Bell Bazaar among the highlights. The municipal page records that the national desert park began formal operation in 2004 and was managed by the Yiwu County tourism bureau, that it was listed as a national 4A-grade scenic area in October 2012, and that it was taken over in September 2018 by the Yiwu Xikuang Poplar Culture Tourism Company.

The county bureau says the developed visitor loop is 38 km and that the area is made up mainly of a 1,000-year, a 3,000-year, a 6,000-year and a 9,000-year poplar zone and a ten-thousand-year root carving zone, and that it is the first in China to make the four seasons the theme of its poplar offering. The two government pages disagree on the length of the route: the municipal page gives about 23 km and the county bureau 38 km, and the record adopts neither. Neither source gives ticket or opening information.

What to look for

• The poplar zones the county bureau names: a 1,000-year, a 3,000-year, a 6,000-year and a 9,000-year zone.
• The Ten-Thousand-Year Root Carving zone, which both pages name.
• The named highlights along the main line: the visitor service centre, Gonggong Mountain, the Pterosaur Home, Sunrise East Mountain, Poplar Old Man and the Camel Bell Bazaar.
• The poplars themselves, which the municipal page describes as cold-, heat-, alkali-, waterlogging- and drought-tolerant, with distinctive growth forms.

Location & getting there

Getting to Yiwu Poplar Forest

Check the open visitor route and follow the site’s rules on distance, food and photography. Conservation areas may limit access beyond designated paths.

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