Yuhua Cave 玉华洞

About Yuhua Cave

Yuhua Cave (玉华洞) is a limestone karst cave at the foot of Tianjie Mountain (天阶山), 5 km southeast of the Jiangle (将乐) county town in Sanming (三明), Fujian, in Meihuajing Village (梅花井村), Guyong Town (古镛镇).

The cave formed in sedimentary limestone that was lifted by crustal movement and then scoured, dissolved and cut by running water. Its name, 'jade splendour', comes from rock walls polished smooth like jade. It is a mix of passages and halls about 6 km long with more than 160 named features. It is made up of two passages; six halls, named Canghe (藏禾), Leigong (雷公), Guozi (果子), Huangni (黄泥), Xiyuan (溪源) and Baiyun (白云); and three small underground streams, 1 to 3 metres wide. The way in, Yishanfeng (一扇风), has a draught that never stops, and the way out, Wugengtian (五更天, 'fifth watch of the night'), leads from darkness into daylight. Experts from the Ministry of Construction who surveyed the cave in 1997 judged it a young limestone cave that is still developing.

Each hall has its own character. Leigong has a flat roof and a wide chamber; Guozi is thick with stone columns and stalactites; Huangni is a vaulted chamber cut by an underground river and moist air; Xiyuan is marked by water erosion; and in Baiyun large fallen blocks litter the floor, showing how collapse enlarged the hall. The State Council placed the Yuhua Cave Scenic Area on its fourth list of national key scenic areas, issued on 17 May 2002.

Visitors have written about the cave, and on its walls, since the Song dynasty. The Song dynasty Neo-Confucian scholar Yang Shi (杨时) wrote a poem on the cave, and the Ming censor Yang Sizhi (杨四知) had the words 'another world inside the cave' (别有洞天) carved at the mouth. The geographer Xu Xiake (徐霞客) came in 1628 with a guide who carried split pine knots in a bamboo basket as torches. He crossed wooden planks several times, noted rock that was white or yellow, hanging or upright, and at the Nine-Storey Tower (九重楼) climbed towards the dawn-like glow of Wugengtian, which he compared with Zhanggong Cave (张公洞) in Yixing. Seventeen registered inscriptions survive on the walls and at both entrances, as cliff carvings, steles and ink writing; three are Song, one Yuan, six Ming, two Qing and five Republican. A Republican-era text ordering a permanent ban on burning and quarrying, 'forever prohibited' (永禁烧凿), is the first such inscription found in any Chinese cave. The inscriptions became an eighth-batch Fujian provincial cultural relics protection unit in 2013.

What to look for

• Yishanfeng (一扇风), the entrance with a constant draught
• Guozi hall (果子洞), crowded with stone columns and stalactites
• Baiyun hall (白云洞), its floor strewn with huge collapsed blocks
• Wugengtian (五更天), the exit where daylight first appears after the dark passages
• Formations Xu Xiake picked out in 1628 as the truest likenesses, such as the Litchi Pillar (荔枝柱) and Grape Umbrella (葡萄伞)
• The Ming carving 'another world inside the cave' (别有洞天) at the cave mouth
• The Republican-era inscription banning burning and quarrying in the cave

Location & getting there

Getting to Yuhua Cave

• Search for 玉华洞 with 三明市 and 将乐县.