夜郎洞

Yelang Dong

Useful Information

Location:	Yelangdong Scenic Area, Piandan Mountain, Huangguoshu Scenic Area, Zhenning County, Anshun City. (26.091511, 105.624866)
Open:	APR to OCT daily 8-18. NOV to MAR daily 8:30-17:30. [2025]
Fee:	Adults CNY 70. [2025]
Classification:	Karst Cave
Light:	Incandescent Coloured Light
Dimension:
Guided tours:
Photography:
Accessibility:
Bibliography:	Min Zhao, Hong-Chun Li, Chuan-Chou Shen, Su-Chen Kang, Chun-Yen Chou (2017): δ18O, δ13C, elemental content and depositional features of a stalagmite from Yelang Cave reflecting climate and vegetation changes since late Pleistocene in central Guizhou, China. Quaternary International. 452. researchgate DOI
Address:	Yelang Dong, Yelangdong Scenic Area, Piandan Mountain, Huangguoshu Scenic Area, Zhenning County, Anshun City, Tel: +86-851-36823366.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

Description

夜郎洞 (Yelang Dong, Yelang Cave) is named after the independent kingdom of Yelang, which existed during Warring States period (475-221 BC). There were several independent kingdowms, and Yelang was the largest. The cultural traditions of the Yelang Empire were bamboo worship, cow totems, bullfights and dogfights. In 111 BC it was conquered by the Han dynasty, and incorporated as Zangke Commandery. Today this area is called Anshun Area and is a prefecture-level city in Guizhou. According to local lore, the King of Yelang once lived here, his summer palace was located in the cave entrance which provided cooling in the hot summer.

The cave is located at a small lake, which is formed by the resurgence which leaves the cave portal. The car park and infrastructure of the show cave is located on the eastern shore, the lake is crossed on a bridge with glass floor, then the cave is entered through the resurgence. The tour follows the river for some time on a pontoon bridge. Older descriptions tell about a boat ride which started at the ticket office, crossed the lake and entered the cave, and ended at the beginning of the dry passage. This boat ride was abandoned with the construction of the glass bottom bridge across the lake and the pontoon bridge in the cave. Then the tour follows a fossil passage with 1.2 km of trail. Halfway up the fossil passage is a doline, which offers access to the surface. The fist part of the fossil passage has abundant dripping water and speleothems, even some pools. The upper part of the passage after the opening is rather dry, the number of speleothems is lower but there are several huge old stalagmites. The trail leads back to the doline, and the cave is then exited through the natural entrance in the doline, and a path on the surface leads back to the entrance.

As far as we understand, the tour is a lot to walk. First across the lake, then the river section and the fossil section. They do not give any distances by we guess its about 3 km in total. The recommended time for visiting is given as 2 to 3 hours.

We have cited a paper by Chinese scientists who analyzed the stalagmites in the cave concerning climate data. We cannot verify the quality of the research, but we were happy to have a cave description by a scientist. This is quite rare. We were a little surprised that they actually gave the location of the cave, but were reassured by the fact that the information was completely nonsensical. Their coordinates were more than 12 km from the real location. They also give the length of the tourist trail, which is as bogus as the location. The numbers they give would result in a six-kilometer hike, we guess one of the reviewers would have complained about the long distance. We can only hope that the actual topic of the paper, the climate data, is less inaccurate.