Sichuan Province


The province Sichuan covers the Sichuan basin, which is surrounded by the Himalaya to the west. It has been known as the Province of Abundance, with both the major agricultural production and rich mineral resources, especially of vanadium, titanium, and lithium.

Cave exploration around Sichuan is rather young, and although the locals knew and used the huge caves and sinkholes of the area, they were totally unknown outside the villages. The exploration started, when Professor Zhu Xuewen from the Institute of Karst geology in Guilin first heard about the huge sinkholes in the early 1980s. He made a first exploration with some caver frieds from Great Britain and discovered huge caves in the Xingwen area.