Current Time in Xingyi, China

Xingyi is a city in the south-west of Guizhou province in China and the seat of the Qianxinan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture. It lies close to the point where Guizhou meets Yunnan and Guangxi, in a landscape of limestone peaks, sinkholes and gorges that ranks among the most dramatic karst country in the world. The altitude of around eleven hundred metres gives it a mild climate in which flowers bloom throughout the year.

The city has a population approaching a million within its administrative boundaries. Its importance is regional, as the commercial and administrative centre of south-western Guizhou, and increasingly touristic, since the scenery around it has become one of the signature landscapes of the province. Coal, gold, electricity generation and aluminium production support the wider economy.

Human settlement here is very old, and the region was long inhabited by Buyei and Miao communities before imperial administration was established. Xingyi acquired its present name in the nineteenth century, and it produced several notable figures in the turbulent politics of republican China, including the warlord governors of the Liu family whose grand courtyard residence still stands. In recent decades it has been transformed by expressway and railway construction.

The great attraction is Wanfenglin, the Forest of Ten Thousand Peaks, where thousands of conical limestone hills rise from a flat valley floor of paddy fields and Buyei villages. Viewing terraces above the valley offer one of the classic views of China, and the area has become a centre for cycling, paragliding and hot air ballooning. Nearby, the Maling River Gorge cuts a narrow slot more than two hundred metres deep, with walkways carved into the cliff behind a curtain of waterfalls, and the Maling River Bridge crosses it at a spectacular height. Wanfeng Lake, formed by a dam on the Nanpan River, offers boat trips among drowned karst peaks.

Xingyi is also famous among palaeontologists. The Xingyi fauna, a collection of Triassic marine reptiles and fossils discovered in the surrounding rocks, is displayed in a geological museum and has made the area an important site in the study of ancient sea life.

Culturally the prefecture is dominated by Buyei and Miao traditions, seen in indigo-dyed batik, elaborate silver ornaments, embroidery and antiphonal singing. The Buyei celebrate the sixth month festival with bullfights, singing and offerings, while Miao communities hold their own gatherings in the mountain villages. Local cooking is sour and spicy, with rice noodles and pickled vegetables at its heart.

Transport has improved sharply. Xingyi Wanfenglin Airport connects the city with Guiyang, Kunming and Guangzhou, expressways cross the mountains in every direction, and railway links tie it into the network towards Nanning and Kunming.

Education is centred on Xingyi Normal University for Nationalities, which trains teachers for the minority regions of the province.

Xingyi is worth visiting for one reason above all: it sits in the middle of a karst landscape of extraordinary beauty, made accessible by modern transport but still surrounded by living Buyei and Miao village culture.