Get to know Yuanmou County
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- Administrative area
- County · 县
- Part of
- Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture
- Chinese name
- 元谋县
- Local areas
- County guide
Area & population
- Area in the source
- 2,021.00 km²
Source: cited geographic source, as of the dates shown.
Layers, pillars and narrow valleys
The formations developed in strata containing river-deposited gravel, sand and clay. A main sandy gully about 1,550 metres long connects with thirty-four smaller valleys. Many pillars stand five to fifteen metres high, with the tallest reaching about 42.8 metres. Dense groups follow the gullies, surrounded by steep faces.
Fossils and prehistoric lives
Yuanmou Man Museum (元谋人博物馆) introduces ancient humans, prehistoric culture and local fossils. Its exhibitions include reconstructed living environments, Palaeolithic and microlithic cultures, the Neolithic Dadunzi Culture (大墩子文化), and dinosaur fossils. Objects include a complete lower jaw of an ancient Yuanmou ape and a Yuan-dynasty blue-and-white cremation jar with cord-pattern decoration. The two-storey museum has a basket-like architectural form intended to suggest a cradle.
Sources for this guide
元谋县A级旅游景区简介-元谋县人民政府 · Yuanmou County 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 Yuanmou County
Core places to explore, with English and Chinese names.
Places to explore around Yuanmou County
A field of tall eroded earth pillars and fluted cliffs in warm low sunlight, their yellow-brown surfaces carved into ribs and caprocks, with dark shadowed gullies between them and bare brown hills rising behind.Yuanmou Earth Forest元谋土林
Yuanmou’s earth forests are eroded sediment landscapes, where runoff has cut channels between pillars and ridges. Wumao offers managed paths for looking closely at coloured layers and the grooves left by water, while Langbapu…
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The exterior of the Yuanmou Man Museum in Yuanmou County, Yunnan · 云南元谋县元谋人博物馆外景 Source-recorded photograph date: Taken on 20 March 2010.Yuanmou Man Museum元谋人博物馆
The Yuanmou Man Museum (元谋人博物馆) in Yuanmou County, Chuxiong Prefecture, Yunnan, is a national second-class museum built in 2010 to display the fossil and archaeological record of Yuanmou Man, the early Homo erectus find made nearby in 1965.
Read the place guide →Plan your visit
Getting there
Yuanmou County is about 80 km in a straight line from central Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture. Search for 元谋县 in a map app to find stations and your accommodation.
Where to stay →Build your route
Yuanmou Earth Forest and Yuanmou Man Museum are both listed here. The linked place guides have entrance and visit details.
Continue with Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture →More in Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture
Sources & geographic information
Administrative names and parent areas: Official geographic directory · Reference date 2026-09-06.
Photo: Yuanmou Earth Forest · 爵士鼓手 · CC BY 3.0. Full frame retained; proportionally resized and converted to WebP. No retouching or changes to the photographed subject. Card displays may crop the view.
Photo: Yuanmou Man Museum · zhanyoun · CC BY-SA 3.0. Full frame retained; proportionally resized and converted to WebP. No retouching or changes to the photographed subject. Card displays may crop the view.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Pins mark approximate centres, not entrances or boundaries.