Laoyuhe Wetland Park 捞渔河湿地公园

About Laoyuhe Wetland Park

Provincial reporting records that the ground here had been badly damaged by over-development in the 1970s and 1980s. From 2008 the lake-wide 'four withdrawals, three restorations' programme returned farmland to forest and fish ponds to open water on both sides of the river mouth, the park grew out of that work, and it opened formally in May 2015. In 2020 the Laoyu River, including the resort-zone reach, was placed on Yunnan's provincial list of beautiful rivers and lakes for that year in the river and river-reach category.

The Kunming Dianchi Administration gives the park an area of 1,372.93 mu with a wetland proportion of 75 per cent, and records ecological vegetation over 80 per cent of it, including 32,000 Zhongshan cypress. Those trees stand in shallow water and form what the authority calls the park's water forest, with fish below and small boats moving between the trunks; their root systems are credited with cleaning the water and cutting the pollution load reaching the lake. Flower displays run through the year, among them tulips, dahlias, rape flowers, cosmos, gladioli and lilies. On the wildlife side, Yunnan Net records three nationally second-class protected plant species, 26 plant species endemic to China and 15 endemic to Yunnan, and 132 animal species, of which 83 birds fall in the state-protected category of terrestrial wildlife of economic or scientific value. A section chief of the resort zone's water authority put the resident egret population at about 5,000 and said roughly 2,000 waterbirds hatch there each year, judged from eggshells collected.

What to look for

• The water forest of Zhongshan cypress standing in shallow water, with fish below and boats passing between the trunks
• The boardwalk of nearly four kilometres, which can be walked through the plantings
• Egrets, which the park's management puts at about 5,000 resident birds, alongside wild ducks, kingfishers and red-billed gulls
• The seasonal flower displays, running through tulips, dahlias, rape flowers, cosmos, gladioli and lilies
• A distant view of the Xishan ridge, the skyline known as the Sleeping Beauty

Location & getting there

Getting to Laoyuhe Wetland Park

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

• Search for 捞渔河湿地公园 with 昆明市 and 呈贡区.