Cibi Lake 茈碧湖

About Cibi Lake

Cibi Lake (茈碧湖), also called Ning Lake (宁湖), is a long, narrow plateau lake in Eryuan County (洱源县), Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, about 73 km north of Dali City, and is counted as the source of Erhai Lake (洱海). Its Bai-language name is Cifbilhup.

The lake lies in a fault depression and runs 6.1 km from north to south, between 0.75 and 2.5 km wide, with a 17 km shoreline. It covers 8.46 km², averages 11 m deep and reaches 32 m. The Fengyu River (凤羽河) and Meici River (梅茨河) feed it, and its outflow, the Haiwei River (海尾河), continues as the Mizhi River (弥直河) south into Erhai. The provincial culture and tourism department's "Good Morning Yunnan" series reports water quality of Class II or better through the year.

The name comes from the cibi flower (茈碧花), a white water lily with yellow stamens. The Qing-dynasty Yunnan Gazetteer (云南通志) described it as a small lotus-like plant of Ning Lake that filled the lake with bloom in the eighth month. Xinhua reported in 2024 that the flower had been hard to find in the lake since 2000 and survived only in villagers' ponds. In 2020 botanists from the Kunming Institute of Botany found wild plants in nearby mountain lakes and set up a reserve of more than 60 mu; in 2024 a few plants went back into Cibi Lake on trial.

The Ming traveller Xu Xiake (徐霞客) wrote that the lake lacked the willow-lined bridges of Hangzhou's West Lake but surpassed it in its ring of green hills. On calm, sunny days strings of bubbles rise from the lake bed in formations known as "water-flower trees" (水花树); the Ming scholar Yang Sheng'an (杨升庵) wrote a poem after watching them. On the north shore, Liyuan Village (梨园村) is a Bai village set among more than a thousand old pear trees whose residents travel mostly by boat; visitors find a lakeside embankment, boardwalks and cycling around the lake.

What to look for

• The "water-flower trees" (水花树), columns of bubbles rising from the lake bed on sunny days
• Liyuan Village (梨园村) on the north shore, a Bai village among more than a thousand old pear trees
• Pear blossom filling Liyuan Village in the flowering season
• Cibi flowers (茈碧花), white water lilies with yellow stamens, being reintroduced to the lake
• Views over the lake from the embankment, and cycling on the lakeside route

Location & getting there

Getting to Cibi Lake

• Search for 茈碧湖 with 大理白族自治州 and 洱源县.