Dianchi Lake

Insider View

Dianchi Lake is the largest lake in southwest China and the most scenic area of Kunming. In recent years, many luxury hotels built around the lake, now it is the best place in Kunming to take a stroll and join the local people in the park.
— Your China Specialists

Unique Experience

Take a stroll and join the local people singing and dancing in the park.

Basic Information

Opening Hours: 24 hours
Visiting Time: 1-2 hours
Chinese Name: 滇池
Address: Dianchi, Xishan District, Kunming City, Yunnan Province

Overview – Dianchi Lake

Dianchi Lake, also known as Lake Dian, is a large lake located on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau close to Kunming, Yunnan, China. Its nickname is the “Sparkling Pearl Embedded in a Highland,” and it was the model for the Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace in Beijing. Its name is the source of Yunnan’s Chinese abbreviation.

It is a freshwater fault lake at 1,886.5 m (6,189 ft) above sea level. The lake covers 298 km2 (115 sq mi). It is 39 km (24 mi) long from north to south, and the average depth is 4.4 m (14 ft). It is the eighth largest lake in China and the largest in Yunnan Province.

Pollution is a major problem for the lake. In the city of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, parts of which are subtropical, there was traditionally no talk of water shortage since the city is right next to one of Asia’s biggest freshwater lakes. But 90 percent of Kunming’s wastewater was pumped untreated into the lake until the first wastewater plant was built in 1990. In addition, much of the marsh system around the lake was destroyed during the Great Leap Forward in a misguided effort to raise rice production by filling the marshes in with trucked-in soil. Agricultural runoff is also a major problem.

Over the past 20 years, the city has built intensive underground pipes to intercept pollution and scores of large sewage treatment plants, where all wastewater has to be carefully processed before being reused or discharged into the lake.

More than 50 billion yuan (around seven billion U.S. dollars) has been invested in the campaign during the past 20 years. Now the efforts have started to pay off. In 2016, the lake’s water quality was upgraded to Grade V – a leap-forward in progress and further improved to Grade IV from 2018.

After the significant change of the local environment, thousands of seagulls fly from Siberia to Kunming in November and fly back in March of the next year to spend the winter in Dianchi Lake. Thousands of seagulls are flying around the lake, becoming a new scene of Dianchi Lake.

Source: Wikipedia

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