Lashihai Lake (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.