Zhuanxu Dragon Cave 颛顼龙洞

About Zhuanxu Dragon Cave

The scenic area sits in high-mountain gorge terrain along a north-south rift-fold zone covering about 10 square kilometres, ranging from 2,800 metres at the top of Longzhou (龙舟) mountain down to 1,200 metres in the Anning River valley. It was rated a provincial scenic and historic area of Sichuan in 1998, a national AA-grade tourist area in 2002 and a national AAA-grade tourist area in 2006, according to the county tourism bureau's 2021 page; a 2023 page from the same bureau describes it as a national AAAA-grade tourist area made up of sights including the cave itself, Longyin gorge, Huashuiba, a natural bonsai garden, a wild botanical garden and a summit scenic section, while the 2021 page instead groups the area into four sections built around the cave, the Guabang Mosque historic site, the Wanqiu 'May Seventh' cadre school and the Guanyin hot-spring baths; both bureau pages are reported here as dated snapshots rather than reconciled into one list. The cave passage itself, developed to 1,760 metres, is divided by local naming into a front section likened to a dragon palace and a rear section likened to a heavenly palace, hung with colourfully banded stalactites and crossed by numerous internal waterfalls; the bureau names the dragon-palace and heavenly-palace chambers together with the waterfalls inside Liudao cave as the area's 'three wonders'. Outside the cave, 23 waterfalls of varying form make up the Longtan waterfall group, which the bureau describes as complemented by tree ferns and more than a hundred other plant species, and a rhododendron stand covering ten thousand mu tops Longzhou (龙肘) mountain, connected to the waterfall group by the same watercourse.

The county chronicles office ties the cave's present name to Miyi's promotion of a Zhuanxu tradition. Its 历史名人 page records that, according to historical sources, the legendary ruler Zhuanxu was born to Changyi, son of the Yellow Emperor, and Changpu of the Shushan clan, at 'the wilds of Ruoshui', which the page glosses as the stretch of river where the Yalong and the Anning meet within Panzhihua; it further records that a Neolithic-era site was found at Hejiaba on the Anning River in Miyi in the 1980s, and that scholars have since argued from documentary, archaeological and folkloric evidence that Zhuanxu's birthplace lay within the county. Starting in 2012 Miyi held a series of symposia and compiled books on Zhuanxu-related history and folklore, and built a 'dragon culture' brand around the legend using the cave, then a 3A-grade scenic area called Longtan, as its vehicle; the cave was renamed Zhuanxu Longdong. In 2016 the county was inspected and formally named 'the hometown of Zhuanxu culture in China' by the China Folk Literature and Art Association.

What to look for

• The main cave passage, 1,760 metres long, popularly divided into a dragon-palace front section and a heavenly-palace rear section, hung with banded stalactites.
• Liudao cave and its waterfalls, named by the tourism bureau together with the dragon-palace and heavenly-palace chambers as the area's three wonders.
• The Longtan waterfall group beside the cave: 23 waterfalls of different forms, complemented by tree ferns and other plant species.
• The rhododendron stand covering ten thousand mu on the summit of Longzhou (龙肘) mountain, connected to the waterfall group by the same watercourse.
• The Guabang Mosque, named by the 2021 bureau page as a historic site within the wider scenic area.

Location & getting there

Getting to Zhuanxu Dragon Cave

Use an authorised visitor route. Cave sections, geological sites and access roads can close independently, so confirm the area that your ticket covers.

• Search for 颛顼龙洞 with 攀枝花市 and 米易县.