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Lashihai (Lashi) Lake
 Lashihai
wetland is located in the middle of Lijiang County .
It was approved as a plateau wetland nature reserve
in Yunnan Province in June, 1998. Since then, the nature
reserve has been rehabilitated, protected and improved,
which turns to be a paradise of thousands of birds consisted
of 57 species, a place where biodiversity has been effectively
conserved.
With an area of 5,330 hectares,
Lashihai Lake is about 9.3 km long from south
to north and 8.2 km wide from east to west. It
is the largest lake in Lijiang County. Surrounded
by the mountains, the catchment of Lashihai is
about 256.6 square meters.
The Rivers of Meiquan and Keluokang
are merged together into Lashihai. With good quality
of water, which meets water quality requirement
of Grade II. It is one of the reserved drinking
water sources for the city of Lijiang.
 There
are Naxi and other minority nationalities inhabited
around Lashihai Lake, who are rich in cultural and folk
customs. Zhiyun Temple situated by Lashihai Lake is
regarded as one of the five temples in the city of Lijiang.
It is a famous tourism spot of Tibetan Lamaism.
The LPW endows rich resources
of biology.
(1) Animals
At the turn of each autumn and
winter, thousands of water fowls migrate afar
from the north, among which there are some of
national protected birds, such as Black Storks,
Black Neck Cranes, Chinese Mergansers, etc. as
well as great numbers of ordinary water birds
like Ruddy Shelducks and Mandarin Ducks and so
on. According to the records, the quantity of
bird species in the area of Lashihai wetland each
year amounts to 25,000 ~ 30,000, the Anatidae
of Anseriformes takes the dominant. 9 from 57
species of birds in wetland are of special, rare
and distinctive ones. They are distributed in
the shallow lake areas in the south, west and
east side of Lashihai.
 (2)
Plants
The wetland plants in nature
reserve are divided into four major life forms,
among which there are 21 kinds of helophyte plant,
7 kinds of merged aquatic plant, 5 kinds of floating
plant and 11 kinds benthophyte (submerged) plant.
The submerged ones are among the largest portion
for the building of aquatic plant community in
the lake. The Ottelia acuminate is not only edible
but valuable for ornamental purpose as well, which
is an endangered species listed as national protected
species Grade III.
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