The Stone Forest

Narrow pillars and stalagmite like peaks create a dense forest of stone covering 300 square kms of China’s Yunnan Province. Thousands of stones of all shapes and sizes create a maze like environment as they rise abruptly from this otherwise green countryside, some sharp and jagged, some sloping and dome like.

Local stories and legends have become attached to some of the stones, especially those resembling people or animals and there are many local myths about the forest’s creation.

Forests exist below as well as above ground cave systems with the same formations mirror the surface, but underground this kind of rock formation looks much more familiar.

The Science: The land that is now covered in these strange stone pillars and ‘trees’ was once, 270 million years ago, under water and was formed from sea floor sediment. Once it was exposed to the air erosion did the rest.

Located on the outskirts of Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province.