Fuxian Lake Chengjiang Section 抚仙湖澄江段

About Fuxian Lake Chengjiang Section

The lake sits in the Chengjiang basin, one of the down-faulted hollows formed as the Yunnan plateau rose during the Tertiary, and is ringed by block-faulted erosional mountains mostly between 1,500 and 2,500 metres, stepping higher to the west and to the north; Guduishan, Sanlingzishan, Sanliangzishan and Bizishan reach about 2,500 to 2,650 metres. The research station on the lake gives its area as 211 square kilometres with a maximum depth of 155 metres, and calls it the third deepest lake known in China. A solitary limestone island stands in the middle of the southern part of the water. The lake lies on a deep fracture belt on the western branch of the Xiaojiang fault zone, where neotectonic movement has been strong enough to produce repeated destructive earthquakes: the station records that one of them dropped the village of Guandu, near Haikou on the east shore, into the lake, and that the Tonghai magnitude 7.6 earthquake of 1970 was felt strongly here. Hot springs break out at several points around the shore, the Reshuitang spring on the east side at about 55 degrees Celsius and 20 litres a second.

Although Fuxian Lake is only 17 kilometres from Dianchi, the two belong to different river systems: Fuxian drains through the Nanpan River to the Pearl, Dianchi through the Jinsha to the Yangtze, each at the head of its own system. No large river runs in. Some twenty-odd mountain streams, among them the Jianshan, Luqi, Dongda and Xida, supply the lake, with reservoirs built on the upper courses of the larger ones, and a channel 15 to 20 metres wide and 2.5 kilometres long, the Gehe, brings water in from Xingyun Lake to the south-west. The single outlet, the Haikou River on the east shore, carries an average of only 3.59 cubic metres a second. The water is oligotrophic, clear and almost free of suspended sediment, hard because of the limestone hills around it, and so low in nutrients that aquatic life is limited in both numbers and variety. Chengjiang city records a catchment of 674.69 square kilometres and a stored volume of 20.6 billion cubic metres, 9.16 per cent of all the water held in China's freshwater lakes and 91.4 per cent of the Class I fresh water in the nationally monitored natural lakes, and notes that Fuxian is one of eight national pilot lakes for protecting good-quality water bodies.

What to look for

• The limestone island standing alone in the middle of the southern part of the lake.
• The ring of block-faulted mountains around the basin, rising to about 2,500 to 2,650 metres at Guduishan, Sanlingzishan, Sanliangzishan and Bizishan.
• Haikou on the east shore, the lake's only outlet, where the Haikou River leaves for the upper Nanpan and the Pearl River system.
• The Gehe, a channel 15 to 20 metres wide and 2.5 kilometres long that carries water into the south-west corner of the lake from Xingyun Lake.
• The Reshuitang hot spring on the east shore, one of several thermal outflows around the lake, at about 55 degrees Celsius.

Location & getting there

Getting to Fuxian Lake Chengjiang Section

Confirm the visitor entrance and which boat or walking routes operate on your date. Rainfall, water levels and weather can change access.

• Search for 抚仙湖澄江段 with 玉溪市 and 澄江市.