Erhai Lake

The Erhai Lake is located in the Dali Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province. Since it has a shape of an ear, it gets the name Erhai (Ear Lake). It stretches 42 kilometers from north to south and 3.9 kilometers from east to west. The lake covers an area of more than 250 square kilometers and is 21.5 meters at the deepest. It is ranked the second place in Yunnan Province and the seventh freshwater lake in the nation by area and water storage. 

The Erhai Lake is a barrier lake formed after a fault foundering of the earth's crust. It originates in Heigushan Mountain of Er'yuan. The water mainly comes from the Miju River and Luoshi River in Er'yuan County, the 18 brooks of Cangshan in the west, and the Boluo River, Fengwei Brook, Yulong Gully and Shitou Brook in the southeast, which converge into a mighty torrent and then flow into Erhai Lake. After that, it again flows into the Lancangjiang River by passing through Tianshengqiao (Natural Bridge) of Xiaguan, where a multistage power station of medium size stand, and the Yangbi River in the west over a distance of more than 20 km.

The famous sights of the Erhai Lake include Three Islets, namely Jinsuo, Chiwen, and Yuji, Four Lands, namely Malian, Mandarin Duck, Qingsha, and Daguanpeng, and Nine Curves, namely Lotus, Huge Crane, Panji, Phoenix Wing, Dill, Ox Horn, Bozuo, Gaopin, Soaring Crane. Besides these sights, the lake also has some other attractions such as Shadows of Three Towers, Nine-Arched Stone Bridge, and Jade Dragon Playing in the Water, etc.