Get to know Bole
Photo adjustments
Full frame retained; EXIF orientation normalized, proportionally resized to at most 800 pixels and converted to WebP. No generated pixels or subject changes. Cards may crop the display.
- Administrative area
- County-level city · 县级市
- Part of
- Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture
- Chinese name
- 博乐市
- Local areas
- County-level city guide
Area & population
- Population · 2020
- 246,706
- Administrative seat
- Nanchengqu Subdistrict
Source: cited geographic source, as of the dates shown.
A mountain lake and cold-water fish
Sayram stands at roughly 2,071 metres, beside Huocheng County (霍城县). The lake measures about thirty kilometres from east to west and twenty-five from north to south. Its fishery began with the introduction of cold-water whitefish from Russia in 1998; the first commercial catch followed in 2000. Swan wetlands and meadows form part of the lake’s protected habitats.
Shapes carved into reddish rock
Guaishiyu lies in Kapumugayi Valley (卡浦牧尕依沟), about forty-eight kilometres northeast of Bole. More than ten streams cut through the area, with an east–west stream forming its principal sightseeing route. Weathering has shaped the reddish-brown granite into forms resembling camels, eagles and elephants. Paired hollows in the rocks create apparent animal eyes.
Sources for this guide
赛里木湖美景 - 博乐市人民政府 · Bole Municipal People’s Government
怪石峪 - 博乐市人民政府 · Bole Municipal People’s Government
Original English written from the listed sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer. Updated 2026-09-27.
Explore Bole
Core places to explore, with English and Chinese names.
Places to explore around Bole
Sailimu Lake · 赛里木湖Sayram Lake赛里木湖
Sayram Lake sits in a high mountain basin in Bortala, surrounded by grassland and ridges. Different shores offer different combinations of open water, meadow, wetland and woodland, so a circuit is more varied than one viewpoint…
Read the place guide →
Guaishiyu Scenic Area · 怪石峪Guaishiyu Scenic Area怪石峪
Guishiyu (怪石峪) is a scenic area of weathered granite formations in Kapu Mugayi gully about 48 kilometres north-east of Bole (博乐市), Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang.
Read the place guide →Plan your visit
Getting there
Bole is about 6 km in a straight line from central Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture. Search for 博乐市 in a map app to find stations and your accommodation.
Where to stay →Build your route
Sayram Lake and Guaishiyu Scenic Area are both listed here. The linked place guides have entrance and visit details.
Continue with Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture →More in Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture
Sources & geographic information
Administrative names and parent areas: Official geographic directory · Reference date 2026-09-06.
Photo: Sayram Lake · BitsRot · CC BY 4.0. Wikimedia thumbnail; fitted to the ranking-card frame.
Photo: Guaishiyu Scenic Area · Source photographer · License not provided. EXIF orientation normalized; resized without changing aspect ratio; converted to WebP. No subject edits.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Pins mark approximate centres, not entrances or boundaries.