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Taking a trip into the hully karst
landscape ofGuilin at sunset is one of the most breath-taking site in China. Guilin by the banks of the Li River in southern China is justifiably considered to be one of the most beautiful in China. Today, Guilin attracts innumerable tourists because of its unique landscape. Until the end of the 1970s, it was a quiet, sleepy area. Since then, Guilin and the settlements along the Li River have undergone an incredible development through tourism. This town with over 400,000 inhabitants acquired its name from the Cassia trees, whose blooms carry their sweet scent through the whole town in autumn. Guilin literally means "Cassia Tree Forest". Guilin is said to be founded in 214 BC.
At that
time, the Lingqu Canal was built under the
regency of the first Chinese emperor, Qin Sin
Huangdi. It still connects the central Asian
plain with southern China, and South-East Asia,
via the Yangzi, the Lijiang and the Pearl river.
Guilin and its surroundings are still mostly
agricultural, but this is limited by the numerous
mountains which pose a problem in the whole of
Guangxi region. The landscape is characterised by
terraced rice paddies, water buffalos, and bamboo
groves, and peasants with turn up trousers and
cone-shaped straw hats. Guilin is famous for it 
spicy
Guilinjiang, a type of pepper sauce. From the
Mountain of Coloured Layers, a 223 metre high
mountain on the north, visitors can get a
wonderful view of Guilin and Lijiang. The most
beautiful tourist spot is the Crystal
Palace of Dragon King, in the
Reed Flute Cave at north west of the city centre
and a subterranean water landscape, which
resembles the landscape around Guilin and the Li
River.
A boat trip on the
peaceful Li River is the
absolute high point of any visit to Guilin. A
cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo, visitors will
experience the winding and twisting Li River,
goes past the many bizarre mountains whose shapes
have inspired and fired the Chinese imagination,
the Elephant Trunk Mountain, Old Man Mountain,
Pagoda Mountain and Hole Mountain. Cormorant
fishermen in narrow bamboo boats, bathing
children, water buffaloes, 
small
settlement and women doing their washing on the
banks of the river can be seen along the way. Yangshuo, at the
end of the boat journey is today a developed
village that thrives mainly on tourism and seems
to have nothing but tourist shops.
- North-east of Guilin is Sanjiang, a settlement of the Song people. Changyong Bridge is an architecturally unique sight. South-west of Guilin, in the centre of the Autonomous region of Guangxi is Linzhou with 600,000 inhabitants, is an expanding industrial town, pricturesque and typically southern Chinese. The main attraction is the Dule Rock with its numerous karst caves. Another area with a beautiful landscape is the settlement of Guiping. The capital of the Autonomous Region of Guangxi is Nanning. It is located deep in the south and is only 160 km from the Vietnamese border. South-west of Nanning, near the Vietnamese border by the river Zuojiang, is a landscape as fantastic as that in Guilin. In Ningmeng county, visitors can see a 1,700 year old mysterious rock painting along a steep rock face by taking a boat on Zuojiang river.
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