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Explore the region
About Bamei Village
Bamei Village (坝美) is a Zhuang (壮族) village in Bamei Town (坝美镇), Guangnan County (广南县), in Yunnan's Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture (文山壮族苗族自治州): a farming basin ringed by karst hills whose way in and out runs through two limestone water caves.
The village lies north of Liancheng (莲城), a provincial-level historic and cultural city, on the Ake River (阿科河) in the upper basin of the Tuoniang River (驮娘江), part of the Pearl River's Xi River system. It stands at 870 metres, with a mean annual temperature of 18 degrees Celsius, and the land suits rice. Hills close it in on four sides and no road reaches it; villagers traditionally wade along the rock walls, pole bamboo rafts or paddle dugout canoes through the 950-metre Chushui Cave (出水洞, 'water-exit cave') and the 680-metre Tangna Cave (汤拿洞). The Ministry of Culture and Tourism describes the karst landscape as ringed by hills and lined with cliffs.
In Zhuang, ba means the mouth of a valley and mei means trees, and the Guangnan County government says the village is named for the many trees where people settled. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism likens its landscape, one river passing through two caves, to the Peach Blossom Spring (桃花源记) described by the poet Tao Yuanming (陶渊明), and it is acclaimed as 'China's last land apart from the world' (中国最后的世外桃源). Villagers hand down a story that after the Zhuang leader Nong Zhigao (侬智高) was defeated by the Song in the 1050s, his daughter and other women and children hid in Bamei under new names and married into the village.
Tourism development began in 2001. The Bamei scenic area, northwest of Bamei Town, covers 20.19 square kilometres of karst hills, caves and farmland. It was rated a national 3A scenic area in May 2011 and a 4A scenic area in January 2021. Local legends attach to the great banyan, to a 'male river' and 'female river', and to a pair of 'husband and wife' trees.
What to look for
- Chushui Cave (出水洞), also called Taoyuan Cave (桃源洞), the 950-metre water cave into the village
- Tangna Cave (汤拿洞), the 680-metre second water cave
- The Ake River (阿科河) beside the village and the farmland of the basin
- The great banyan tree (大榕树) and its village legend
- The wind-and-rain bridge (风雨桥) and the village boat landing
Location & getting there
Getting to Bamei Village
- Search for 坝美 with 文山壮族苗族自治州 and 广南县.
Find Bamei Village
坝美 · 广南县
No reliable map pin yet: search by the Chinese name.
Sources & visit information
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-23. Opening hours, admission and access arrangements are not covered; confirm current visitor information with the site.
Some facts checked against Wikipedia contributors, "坝美" · CC BY-SA 4.0.