Wudalianchi Volcanic Area

UNESCO Global Geopark And Man And The Biosphere Reserve; Fourteen Volcanoes And Five Barrier Lakes · Heihe, Heilongjiang

A field of fourteen volcanoes and five linked lakes in the far north of Heilongjiang, and one of the best-preserved young volcanic landscapes in the world. The name means Five Connected Lakes, formed when eruptions in 1719 and 1721 sent lava flows across the Bei River and dammed it into a chain of pools - the youngest craters in China, their cones still bare and their flows still black. Walkways cross the Old Black Mountain lava field, a frozen sea of ropy and blocky rock split by pressure ridges, and a stairway climbs the cinder cone to a rim looking over the whole volcanic group. Around the lakes rise older, forested cones and marshes full of waterbirds. What draws Chinese visitors in their thousands, though, is the water: cold mineral springs bubble up through the lava, so heavily carbonated and iron-rich that people queue with jerry cans to drink them and bathe in the spa complexes, believing them curative. The area is a UNESCO Global Geopark and biosphere reserve, and is deep-frozen and largely empty from November to April.

Wudalianchi Scenic Area, Wudalianchi City, Heihe, Heihe, Heilongjiang, China

Daily about 8:00-17:00 from May to September and 8:30-16:00 from October to April; many facilities run reduced hours in the deep winter.

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