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Red Stone Forest National Geopark is located in Qietong and Duanlong Townships of Guzhang County, Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture, with an area of about 30 square kilometers, 26 kilometers from Guzhang County seat. It borders Yuanling County to the east, adjoins Luxi and Jishou counties and cities to the south, and is bounded by the Youshui River from Yongshun County to the north, opposite "Furong Town." It lies exactly in the middle of the golden tourism corridor from Zhangjiajie to Fenghuang. It is located in the central hinterland of the tourism sector of Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, and Chongqing.
Red Stone Forest National Geopark is a pearl on the golden tourism corridor from Zhangjiajie to Fenghuang. It is China's only red carbonate stone forest, facing "Furong Town" across the Youshui River. The scenic area integrates karst, gorges, caves, lakes and springs, and waterfalls, and has extremely high value for geological research, aesthetic appreciation, and tourism landscape. It is praised as "the Number One Wonder of Wuling." In 2005 it was awarded the title of National Geopark by the Ministry of Land and Resources. In 2006 it was rated as one of the "New Eight Scenes of Xiaoxiang" in the landscape and humanities category—the "Youshui Gallery." In 2013 it won first place in the selection of "China's Most Beautiful Geopark," and in 2013 it was rated a National 4A-level Tourist Attraction.
China National Geopark is a unique natural area mainly composed of geological relics of national-level special geological scientific significance and relatively high aesthetic appreciation value, while also integrating other natural landscapes and cultural landscapes.
The Red Stone Forest is currently the world's only red carbonate stone forest scenic area formed in the Cambrian Period, and was approved as a National Geopark in 2005. The scenic area is covered with tall and strange stones of varied shapes and ever-changing colors, which change with weather, time, and season: red on clear days and black in rain, turning brown-red when overcast, and different from morning to dusk. According to geological experts, the rocks of the Red Stone Forest have a formation history of about 450 million years. The Red Stone Forest region, like the Zuolongxi Gorge, belonged to what geohistory calls the Yangtze Ancient Sea. The seafloor deposited large amounts of carbonate material mixed with mud and sand. Through crustal movement and erosion and dissolution, this beautiful geological wonder was formed.
Famous stone landscapes include Yangtze Ancient Sea, Heavenly Pool, Earthly Pool, Human Pool, Ordovician Seafloor, Small Dragon Gorge, Water Flooding Golden Stones, Flower Bag, Baishou Flat, Lucky Gate, Treasure Flat, and more. There are also underground karst caves, sheer cliffs and sinkholes, thousand-year-old trees, and so on. Within the scenic area, stone peaks stand in forests, ten thousand peaks rise in layered ranges, and the varied karst landforms display their unique and charming elegance to the world. The scenic area combines red, elegant, steep, wondrous, peerless, and ancient in one, and can be called "the Number One Wonder of Wuling." Entering the stone forest area, the landscapes are wondrous and profound, with scenic beauties like clouds and splendid views. Looking around, one seems to enter a dream, as if stepping into a large open-air museum of natural stone landscape sculptures, bringing people enjoyment of beauty.
Stone forest is a type of karst landform, distributed more widely in China's Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, mainly gray stone forests. A "red-skinned" one like Guzhang Red Stone Forest is currently the only one in the country. The core area of Guzhang Red Stone Forest covers about 20 square kilometers. It is brightly colored and beautifully shaped. What is most precious is that Guzhang Red Stone Forest has preserved its original ecological beauty and was never disturbed before its discovery. Within the stone forest are gorges, streams, clear springs, carpet-like lawns, and ancient wisteria flowers, which bring out the best in the red stone forest. The overall landscape is elegant, exquisite, and refined, just like a natural garden. Some reddish stone peaks are like red lotuses just blooming, some like camel humps rising, some like galloping horses, and there are also various stone walls, stone pillars, stone caves, flying stones, natural bridges, and more, all remarkably true to life and dazzling to the eye.
All the stones here are covered with a layer of fine, dense patterns, like coral reefs. With its typicality, rarity, beauty, naturalness, systematicness, and completeness, the exquisite and beautiful Red Stone Forest has won high praise from experts in various fields. Stone forest is the model of Chinese garden art and is praised as "the source of garden making." Stone landscapes are the most important component of Chinese classical gardens, and stone forest landscapes are the best primitive garden landscapes. The colors of Guzhang Red Stone Forest also change with the weather. On clear days, it appears purplish red; after a passing shower, it suddenly becomes brown-red, just like a landscape painting; when the rain passes and the sky clears, countless stone peaks magically change from brown-red to purplish red from the edges. At this time the colors are vivid, like fine brushwork and heavy color, changing in many ways in an instant, astonishing to behold.
Red Stone Forest National Geopark is located within Guzhang County, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Hunan Province. The core scenic area covers about 20 square kilometers. It is situated in the middle position between the Furong Town scenic spot circle of Xiangxi Prefecture and the golden tourism corridor from Zhangjiajie to Fenghuang, and is the central hinterland of the tourism sector of Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, and Chongqing.
About 480 million years ago in the Early Ordovician, the Red Stone Forest region belonged to what geohistory calls the Yangtze Ancient Sea. The seafloor deposited large amounts of carbonate material mixed with mud and sand. After crustal movement uplifted the seafloor, under the external dynamic geological processes of natural weathering, water erosion, dissolution, and gravity, this beautiful geological wonder was formed—China's only red carbonate stone forest. Due to differences in rock material composition, stone teeth, buds, and stone forests have many varied colors. Those containing more iron form red after oxidation; those containing more mud generally appear gray or gray-green; those with relatively pure carbonate generally appear white. The colorful stone forest formed in this way is dominated by red stone forest in distribution, and therefore the Red Stone Forest scenic area is composed of red stone forest karst landforms as well as gorge landforms and underground rivers, lakes, waterfalls, and cave landforms. It includes geological relics such as stone forests, peak clusters, stone pillars, rivers, lakes, underground rivers, waterfalls, caves, karst depressions, standard geological sections, and paleontological fossils. They form diverse, colorful, clearly layered, wonderfully magical, and magnificent geological and landform landscapes, some like divine turtles probing the sea, eagles striking the sky, some like redbud flowers in full bloom, ocean ice beds, some like castle peaks, some like young swallows waiting to be fed or snails moving house, some like colorful mazes, some like maidens emerging from the bath, hands cupped in prayer, or Guanyin seated on a lotus, some like stone whips awaiting their master or divine turtles probing the sea, and some like divine eagles gazing at the moon or golden pheasants announcing good fortune.
The Tujia people have believed in gods, thanked gods, and entertained gods since ancient times. A handwritten copy of the 1793 edition from the fifty-eighth year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty records: "According to Yong customs, when thanking the gods one must invite priests and shamans from Chenzhou Prefecture to sing and perform Nuo opera, placing male and female statues of the Nuo King above, while the priests and shamans chant incantations, worship the gods, and cast divination blocks to determine good or ill fortune." They believed that worshipping the heaven god sought timely weather—"favorable wind and rain"; worshipping the mountain god sought wealth—"abundant harvests of the five grains"; and worshipping the water god sought destiny—"smooth sailing." Therefore, when Tujia people went into the mountains to hunt or dig the soil and farm, there was the local custom of "clapping hands to open the mountain" in worship of the "He Cuo" mountain god. Through "clapping hands and shouting," they prayed to the god: "He Cuo mountain god, gather and control the poisonous snakes, fierce beasts, and pests in the mountains, and do not let the people entering the mountains be harmed by them. Open the mountain gate, release the wild creatures, release the wealth, and let each of us gain something." After this simple, unique ritual, the Tujia people walked into the mountains shouting all the way.
