The Danxia Mountain

Located in north Guangdong Province, the Danxia Mountain mainly consists of red sandstone and features a unique landform of red rocks and cliffs. Geologists have named this type of landform after the mountain, the Danxia landform. More than 700 other places in China feature the same landform, but Danxia Mountain is the most beautiful and most representative of all.

As long as 1,500 years ago, the Danxia Mountain had already been noticed by the ancient Chinese, who in their poems described the mountain as “having a red color as bright as the morning and evening glow.” In the stretching red hills are numerous large and small stone peaks, castles, walls and bridges--all in different shapes and all spectacular.

The Danxia Mountain hills have their own characteristics: a flat top and steep cliffs on one side, but, opposite the cliffs, gentle slopes. The slopes are mostly covered by flourishing vegetation, while the cliffs abound with bare, red rocks. The unique appearance of the hills has enabled the Danxia Mountain to display both masculine and feminine beauty. Facing the cliffs is like seeing the rocky cliffs, several hundred meters tall, as magnificent pillars, holding up the sky. Observing the mountain from afar, however, lends a gentle, warm feeling from the soft curves of the mountaintop and the slopes.

The unique red rocks of the Danxia Mountain came into being some 100 million years ago, when the place was an inland basin. The rocks around the basin broke and piled up, and due to the hot, dry climate dominating the region at that time, some substances in the rocks were oxygenated and turned rusty red. Over a period of 30 million years, the sediments in the basin gradually formed the red sandstone seen today. Later, as a result of the movement of the earth crust, the basin was lifted and became a mountainous region, while the cutting and erosion effect of flowing water contributed to the formation of the existing Danxia landform.