Yanshan District 雁山区

Setting and landscape

Lingchuan County (灵川县) lies to the east and Lingui District (临桂区) to the west, with Xiangshan (象山区) and Qixing (七星区) districts to the north. Hills of about 200 metres surround Yanshan town (雁山镇) on three sides, while the west bank of the Li River (漓江) is rocky peak country rising to 451 metres. From Zhemu town (柘木镇) south to Yanshan and Dabu (大埠), a wide valley basin is ringed by karst peak forest; the district describes the peak forest in its south-east as the most typical karst landscape in Guilin. The Liangfeng River (良丰河) enters from Lingui and flows about 35 kilometres to the Li River, and the old Gui-Liu Canal (桂柳运河) links it to the Luoqing River (洛清江).

History

The Han dynasty's Shi'an County (始安县), set up in 111 BC, included this area. Until 1996 it was simply Guilin's suburban district, which then ringed the whole city; on 2 December 1996 the State Council renamed it Yanshan District and transferred several of its townships and villages to the urban districts. Today it has one subdistrict, Liangfeng (良丰街道), the towns of Yanshan and Zhemu, Dabu Township and Caoping Hui Ethnic Township (草坪回族乡).

What to see

Yanshan Garden (雁山园) was built in 1869 by a local gentleman, Tang Yue (唐岳), as a private villa, later bought by Cen Chunxuan (岑春煊), Viceroy of Liangguang, and given to the Nationalist government in 1929. Its two-storey Hantong Hall (涵通楼), boat-shaped pavilion on the lake and long covered corridor sit among paddy fields and vegetable plots, and red beans, osmanthus, square bamboo and green-calyx plum are called the garden's "four treasures". It has served as a school campus since 1930 and in 2025 was rated a protected cultural relic of the autonomous region, with its exhibition hall rebuilt and reopened.

The Yanshan University Town (雁山大学城) holds campuses of Guangxi Normal University (广西师范大学), Guilin University of Technology (桂林理工大学) and Guilin Tourism University (桂林旅游学院), as well as the Guilin Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (中国科学院桂林植物园). On the east bank of the Li River in Caoping, Guanyan Cave (冠岩) is an underground river and cave system about 12 kilometres long and a national AAAA scenic area; the explorer Xu Xiake (徐霞客) visited it in 1637 and described it in his travel diaries. In 2026 the district added the Guilin cormorant-fishing custom (桂林鸬鹚捕鱼习俗) to its intangible heritage list.

Highlights

• Yanshan Garden 雁山园: Private garden of 1869, a school campus since 1930 and an autonomous-region protected relic since 2025.
• Guanyan Cave 冠岩: Underground river and cave system of about 12 km on the Li River's east bank; visited and described by Xu Xiake in 1637.
• Yanshan University Town 雁山大学城: Campuses of Guangxi Normal University and other colleges, plus the Guilin Botanical Garden.