Jiuzhaigou Travel Guide

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Jiuzhaigou Overview

If there is a spot in Sichuan Province that is more strikingly beautiful, more fairyland-like than the Huanglong Scenic and Historic Interest Area, it has to be the Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area, which lies about 130km north of Huanglong and roughly 400km north of Chengdu (about 10 hours' drive from the latter), near the Sichuan-Gansu provincial borders. Jiuzhaigou Valley, or the "Valley of Nine Villages", has experienced a development similar to that of Huanglong. Like Huanglong, Jiuzhaigou Valley was enregistered in 1992 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but unlike Huanglong, Jiuzhaigou Valley became a World Biosphere Reserve in 1997, having first been designated as a national park by the Chinese Government in 1982, and opened two years later as an official tourist site.

Like Huanglong, Jiuzhaigou Valley is home to the endangered Giant Panda and the Golden Snub-Nosed Monkey, though the former have since been transferred to the Wolong National Nature Reserve about 250km farther south, where their special needs can better be met.  Jiuzhaigou Valley is also renowned for its special varieties of rhododendron and bamboo, and its 140 different bird species. Like Huanglong, Jiuzhaigou Valley is an alpine environment, albeit a gentler shaped and lusher one. It has the same "bedrock" of calcite deposits into which are etched a variety of brightly colored transparent pools – many of which are full-fledged emerald lakes – with multi-faceted stones strewn about the bottom that twinkle when they catch the sun. Jiuzhaigou Valley lies in a transitional climate zone where northern and southern biotopes overlap, making the area a fascinating botanical and zoological garden.

Jiuzhaigou National Park itself is noted for its scenic alpine gorges with their stunning, multi-tiered waterfalls, bright lakes, and views of snow-capped mountains. The park is quite large, spanning 59km north-south and 19km east-west, with Shuzheng Valley as its principal valley, but with a network of smaller valleys branching out from Shuzheng Valley. A dozen snow-capped peaks rising up to 2000m above the valley floor surround Shuzheng Valley.

Jiuzhaigou Valley's increasing popularity among foreign travellers especially – due of course to the area's unparalleled pristine beauty – has resulted in a building boom to meet tourist demands, to the detriment of the area's natural appeal, which in turn has had a self-regulating effect on the number of visitors such that the state has not felt the need to intervene further. Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area remains a well maintained and popular tourist destination, especially for those seeking a glimpse of heaven on earth.