Lugu Lake Sichuan Side 泸沽湖四川段

About Lugu Lake Sichuan Side

The Yanyuan county gazetteer office gives figures for the lake as a whole: 58.8 square kilometres of water at an elevation of 2,690 m, a greatest depth of 93 m, a mean depth of more than 40 m and visibility of 12 m, with five full islands, four peninsulas, one long causeway island, fourteen bays, seventeen sandbars and twenty-one alluvial belts. The lake divides into the Lianghai or bright sea and the Caohai or grass sea. On the Sichuan side the same office counts eighteen Mosuo matrilineal villages, 1,180 Mosuo households and more than 8,000 Mosuo people long settled there, keeping matrilineal extended households centred on women and the walking-marriage custom in which men do not marry in and women do not marry out; most, it says, still practise it.

Several Mosuo traditions carry heritage listings. The jiacuo dance is on the national intangible cultural heritage list, and the walking-marriage custom, the coming-of-age rite, Daba culture and the Zhuanshan Zhuanhai festival are on the provincial list. The Sichuan side is run by the prefecture's Mosuo Homeland and Lugu Lake Tourist Scenic Area Administration, which draws up the scenic area's management rules and works partly in combined office with Luguhu town. Its protection duties run under the national scenic-area regulations, the Sichuan provincial regulations and the Liangshan prefecture's own Lugu Lake protection regulations, and cover air, water and land environmental resources, the survey and appraisal of important landscapes, and the maintenance of the natural and cultural landscape; protecting, displaying and transmitting Mosuo culture is written into them as a separate duty.

What to look for

• The Caohai, the wetland on the east side of the lake, which the county gazetteer credits with 37 aquatic plant species, 42 bird species and 11 species of fish, shrimp, shellfish, snails and frogs.
• The Zouhun Bridge, more than 300 m long, which crosses the Caohai and links the villages on its two banks.
• The Aliu Gongba scripture hall beside the Caohai, a Sichuan provincial protected cultural relic and a place of worship of the Bon tradition, where a Buddha-image airing and sun-god ritual is held on the fifteenth of the eleventh lunar month.
• The islands and bays the gazetteer counts for the lake as a whole: five full islands, four peninsulas, one long causeway island and fourteen bays.
• The Mosuo villages of the Sichuan side, eighteen of them by the county's count, where most households still practise walking marriage.

Location & getting there

Getting to Lugu Lake Sichuan Side

Confirm the visitor entrance and which boat or walking routes operate on your date. Rainfall, water levels and weather can change access.

• Search for 泸沽湖四川段 with 凉山彝族自治州 and 盐源县.