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Affiliated to Baoshan City in Yunnan Province, Tengchong is located on the western border of Yunnan, adjacent to Myanmar. It is a renowned border historical and cultural city in China, reputed as “the First City on the Remote Frontier”. With a civilization history of more than 2,400 years, it was anciently known as Dianyue. Incorporated into the central government’s administrative system in the Western Han Dynasty, it served as a core node of the ancient Southern Silk Road, namely the Shu-Sindu Road. Since ancient times, it has been a vital trading port and cultural corridor connecting the Central Plains with South and Southeast Asia. Over thousands of years, Central Plains Han culture, southwestern ethnic minority cultures and Southeast Asian exotic cultures have blended here, giving birth to the unique Tengyue culture and shaping Tengchong’s open, inclusive, resilient and profound urban temperament. Large-scale garrison immigration and land reclamation in the Ming Dynasty deeply rooted Central Plains culture in the borderland, making Tengchong a rare highland of Han culture in the southwestern frontier.

Tengchong is not only a millennium strategic town on the Silk Road and a century-old overseas Chinese hometown, but also a world-famous birthplace of jade culture. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, it has been a core distribution center for jade processing and trade. The 600-year-old jade carving craftsmanship has been passed down from generation to generation, earning Tengchong the title of “China’s No.1 Jade City”. As a famous overseas Chinese hometown, hundreds of thousands of local ancestors traveled southward to Southeast Asia to make a living. After returning home, they introduced exotic architectural styles, education concepts and lifestyles, forming a distinctive Sino-foreign integrated overseas Chinese style. In modern times, Tengchong was the main battlefield of the Western Yunnan War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. The Chinese Expeditionary Army fought bloody battles to defend and recover the borderland, leaving profound and solemn red anti-war memories and forging an unyielding spirit of loyalty and national responsibility. Located in the volcanic and geothermal belt, Tengchong boasts rare volcanic and hot sea geological wonders. Integrating border history, Silk Road culture, overseas Chinese customs, anti-war heritage and geothermal ecological scenery, it is a charming border city featuring magnificent natural landscapes and profound millennial humanistic heritage.

Famous Scenic Spots in Tengchong

1. Heshun Ancient Town

Nestled on the outskirts of Tengchong, Heshun Ancient Town is a well-known overseas Chinese town in Yunnan and ranks first among China’s Top Ten Charming Ancient Towns. With a town history of 600 years, it serves as the core carrier of Southern Silk Road culture and Tengyue overseas Chinese culture. Founded in the Ming Dynasty, the town got its name from the local folk custom of harmony and peace. It has long been an important post station on the ancient Southern Silk Road, where caravans and merchants rested and traded, witnessing the prosperous foreign trade and cultural exchange of the millennium-old Silk Road. Central Plains immigrants settled and garrisoned here in the Ming Dynasty, introducing traditional Han rituals, architectural craftsmanship and farming-reading culture, enabling this remote border town to preserve a complete Central Plains cultural context.

The most distinctive feature of Heshun Ancient Town is the perfect integration of Central Plains ancient charm, border customs and Southeast Asian exotic culture. Surrounded by mountains and clear streams, the town features winding bluestone alleys and clustered ancestral halls, ancient temples and old residences. Eight major ancestral halls completely inherit traditional clan culture, while ancient memorial archways and small bridges over flowing water present elegant scenery reminiscent of Jiangnan regions. The town houses the largest and best-preserved rural library in China, whose century-old scholarly heritage highlights Tengchong’s emphasis on education and culture. For generations, local residents traveled to Southeast Asia to start businesses. After returning, they built Sino-foreign styled mansions, integrating Southeast Asian architectural aesthetics and exotic customs into local dwellings and forming a unique overseas Chinese architectural style. After 600 years of tempering, the town has faded the prosperity of business and trade, retaining its scholarly heritage, overseas Chinese memories and simple folk customs. It is a vivid model for interpreting Tengchong’s overseas Chinese culture, Silk Road culture and borderland Han culture.

2. Tengchong Rehai Scenic Area

Tengchong Rehai (Hot Sea) is one of China’s most famous geothermal hot spring clusters, located in Tengchong’s volcanic-geothermal fault zone. A rare natural geothermal health resort in the world, it features geothermal wonders formed by hundreds of millions of years of geological evolution, where natural landscapes and human history complement each other perfectly. Since ancient times, borderland ancestors have known and utilized local geothermal hot springs. Discovering their health-preserving and healing effects, local people have bathed and recuperated here for generations, forming a unique hot spring folk culture. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, literati traveled here and left numerous poems and records, making this geothermal secret land widely renowned.

The scenic area is densely covered with abundant geothermal resources, including dozens of gushing hot springs and gas springs with varying temperatures and diverse forms. Landmarks such as the Big Boiling Pot, Conception Well, Pearl Spring and Toad Mouth feature unique scenery, with boiling water and steaming mist lingering all year round, creating a distinctive landscape of perpetual smoldering heat. The core attraction, the Big Boiling Pot, boasts extremely high water temperature with constantly boiling spring water, symbolizing the vigorous vitality of Tengchong’s geothermal resources. For thousands of years, local people have developed unique catering and health-preserving folk customs by taking advantage of geothermal energy, such as boiling eggs with hot springs and steaming food with geothermal heat. More than a superior natural geological wonder, Rehai Scenic Area embodies the ancient wisdom of local people adapting to and utilizing nature. Integrating geological popular science, folk culture and health preservation culture, it stands as a representative landmark of Tengchong’s landscapes and humanity.

3. Tengchong Volcanic Group Geopark

Tengchong Volcanic Group is China’s largest and best-preserved cluster of dormant Cenozoic volcanoes, known as a “natural volcanic geological museum”. Shaped by hundreds of millions of years of crustal movements and volcanic eruptions, it is a symbolic natural geological landscape of Tengchong with profound borderland humanistic history. In remote antiquity, volcanic activities formed Tengchong’s flat and fertile basin terrain, providing favorable natural conditions for human settlement and reproduction. Ancient borderland ancestors reclaimed land, settled down and worked along volcanic landforms, initiating the early human civilization of Tengchong.

Scattered across the park are various complete volcanoes, craters and lava platforms with clear outlines. The three most representative volcanoes, Da Kongshan, Xiao Kongshan and Hei Kongshan, feature majestic mountain shapes. Standing atop the peaks, visitors can overlook the panoramic view of the volcanic landforms and Tengchong Basin. After thousands of years of wind and rain erosion and ecological evolution, the once desolate lava land has now been covered with lush vegetation, forming a unique ecological landscape of forests growing on volcanoes. For millennia, local residents have skillfully used volcanic stones to build houses, pave roads, construct bridges and make utensils, forming distinctive volcanic stone dwelling culture and construction techniques integrated into daily life. As a valuable geological research base, the volcanic group witnesses the evolution of Tengchong’s landforms and the survival and development history of local ancestors, representing a classic integration of natural wonders and folk humanity.

4. Western Yunnan Anti-Japanese War Memorial Hall & National Martyrs Cemetery

Located on the outskirts of Tengchong, the Western Yunnan Anti-Japanese War Memorial Hall and supporting National Martyrs Cemetery are among the largest and best-preserved anti-war cemeteries in China, bearing the solemn and stirring history of the Western Yunnan War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and serving as an important red humanistic landmark. During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Tengchong, as a strategic gateway of Western Yunnan, became the main battlefield. The city fell in 1942, and in 1944, the Chinese Expeditionary Army launched a comprehensive counterattack, fought bloody battles and recovered Tengchong, launching a crucial campaign in the full-scale strategic counteroffensive of the war and composing a heroic epic of defending the country.

Completed in 1945, the National Martyrs Cemetery was built to bury and honor the heroic soldiers who sacrificed in the Western Yunnan Campaign. With solemn architecture and evergreen pines and cypresses, rows of orderly tombstones are engraved with the names and immortal feats of martyrs. The Western Yunnan Anti-Japanese War Memorial Hall collects a wealth of cultural relics, images and historical materials, fully restoring the arduous course of the war and the heroic deeds of border soldiers and civilians defending the homeland, and vividly interpreting the unyielding and patriotic spirit of the Western Yunnan War of Resistance. The campaign not only recovered the lost borderland of southwest China and opened up the China-India Highway, but also safeguarded national territorial sovereignty. As an important patriotic education base, it carries Tengchong’s profound national memories and inherits the indomitable anti-war spirit of the Chinese nation, serving as a core humanistic resort for remembering history, honoring martyrs and promoting patriotism.

5. Heshun Wetland in Tengchong

Adjacent to Heshun Ancient Town, Tengchong Heshun Wetland is a rare plateau freshwater ecological wetland in the southwestern borderland. Boating elegant landscapes and crisscrossing water systems, it integrates natural ecological beauty with millennial humanistic heritage. Formed based on the ancient water system of Heshun, the wetland has long functioned as a core area for water conservation, farmland irrigation and ecological regulation, nourishing the land and people of Heshun Ancient Town for thousands of years and witnessing the entire development of the town’s Silk Road business, farming civilization and overseas Chinese culture. In ancient times, caravans traveled along the wetland waterways, and the waterfront ancient roads were bustling with merchants, forming an important ecological corridor on the ancient Southern Silk Road.

The wetland boasts well-preserved ecology, lush water plants and dancing water birds, with interlaced rivers and lakes and scattered farmlands. Blending perfectly with ancient towns, farmlands and mountains, it presents a poetic landscape of integrated mountains, waters, farmlands and ancient villages. Ancient bridges, roads and ferry relics along the waterfront record the vicissitudes of Silk Road caravans. For a long time, local Heshun ancestors lived and farmed by the water, developed agriculture and trade relying on the wetland water system, and fostered a simple and peaceful borderland farming culture as well as virtuous folk customs of respecting culture and kindness. Quiet and secluded from the hustle and bustle today, Heshun Wetland retains its original ecological scenery and carries the millennial farming context, Silk Road memories and worldly fireworks of the ancient town, making it a poetic paradise where Tengchong’s natural ecology and humanistic heritage blend perfectly.