The first photograph of Wulingyuan might make you think someone invented a city of stone towers for a film. In Hunan province, narrow sandstone pillars rise above ravines and forests. UNESCO describes more than 3,000 pillars and peaks, many over 200 metres high.
There are also streams, caves and natural bridges. So if you only look at the skyline of rock, you miss the routes and spaces between the “buildings”.
A skyline with no architect
Calling the pillars towers is a useful comparison, but no person stacked them into place. They are part of a landscape shaped through long geological processes. The human imagination supplies the city; the rock supplies the height and form.
UNESCO’s description also explains the importance of the forests as habitat for plants and animals. A place this visually famous can become a background for selfies in our minds, yet its forests are habitat. It has life between the pillars, not merely scenery.
Look down between the towers
A skyline draws the eye upwards. At Wulingyuan, the ground between the pillars deserves just as much attention. UNESCO describes a network of ravines, streams and pools, as well as caves and natural bridges. Height is only one part of the landscape’s structure.
The pillars are quartz sandstone. Knowing the material gives the photograph another layer: the narrow forms aren’t a set of buildings made from different bricks, but exposed rock within a larger geological setting. Their city-like arrangement is a comparison we bring to the view.
That comparison can help at first. You can picture a crowded skyline and understand why a group of tall pillars is striking. Then it begins to get in the way. A ravine isn’t a street planned for traffic, and a stream doesn’t exist to connect two sightseeing stops.
Forest fills parts of those spaces. It provides habitat while also affecting how much of the rock is visible. A distant picture may turn the vegetation into a green carpet, but a closer view would have to deal with individual plants and the uneven ground between them.
Caves and natural bridges add another direction to explore mentally. Instead of simply counting vertical forms, you can consider openings through and beneath the rock. A place can have a famous outline while containing features that the outline hides.
UNESCO also describes the frequent mist and cloud. These don’t need to be turned into a promise about the weather on a particular visit. They help explain why the site’s appearance cannot be summed up by one sharply lit photograph.
Try covering the top half of such a picture. What is still there? The spaces between the tallest shapes may be harder to recognise, yet they are where much of the water and forest belong. The towers become more interesting when you stop asking them to stand alone.
What would change when the mist arrives?
Mist can hide one peak and reveal another, making photographs of the same viewpoint look surprisingly different. The landscape has not transformed, but the amount you can see has. Perhaps that is why people reach for fantasy comparisons.
Its real name and location are more interesting than calling it “the place that looks like a film”. A fictional world can be a doorway to curiosity, but Hunan’s Wulingyuan deserves to be more than a reference to somebody else’s story.
Compare the rock landscapes in these two accounts: What makes a mountain look red? and What did water take away at Guilin?.
Sources
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area