玉华洞

Lok Yu-Hua Dong - Yuhua Cave - Jade Flower Cave

Useful Information

Location:	Yuhua Cave Tian Scenic Area, Jiangle County, Fujian province. Jiangle, east of Taining. Sanming, northwest Fujian. 7 kilometers southeast of Jiangle County. (26.703131, 117.497951)
Open:	All year daily 8-18. [2023]
Fee:	Adults CNY 105. [2023]
Classification:	Karst Cave
Light:	Incandescent Coloured Light
Dimension:	L=6 km.
Guided tours:	V=300,000/a [2000]
Photography:	allowed on several photo spots
Accessibility:
Bibliography:
Address:	Lok Yu-Hua Dong.
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

2005	renovation and creation of eco-car park.

Description

玉华洞 (Yuhua Dong - Jade Flower Cave) is Fujian’s largest karst cave. It is also the most popular tourist site. It was discovered during the early Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). They state that it was visited continually by tourists since then, for more than 2000 years, which would definitely make it the oldest show cave of the world.

At the cave entrance is a astatue of Xu Xiake, who is probably the famous cave visitor. Inside there are like always formations with poetic names. The terraced field is a nice formation of rimstone pools, which actually resembles terraces rice fields. It’s not emerald though, that’s the green lamps of the coloured light.

One chamber is called Leigong Cave and wa snamed after the god of thunder, who is said visits the cave once a year and rests here. The reason is the cave river below, which rumbles during high water and the sound is transported through the shaft to this cavern where it sounds quite loud.

The cave was filming location to the Chinese TV series Journey to the West. Probably the 1 millionth version of this traditional story about the Monkey King. Most of the outdoor scenes were filmed at the Yuhua Cave.