Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (hǎi nán zàng zú zì zhì zhōu 海南藏族自治州), lying in the east of Qinghai Province (qīng hǎi shěng 青海省), is also called Hainan, because it is situated on the south of famous Qinghai Lake (qīng hǎi hú 青海湖), with many scenic spots noted in China and foreign countries which make people linger on. Its distinct tourist attractions are composed of distinctive ethic features, colorful religious festivals and culture and the mysterious and dignified ceremony in honor of the sea. Hainan has also attracted thousands of tourists from home and abroad, with a long history of Buddhism culture and magnificent scenery of the plateau.

Overview

Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture has an area of 45,895 square kilometers (17,720 sq mi) and its seat is located in Gonghe County (gòng hé xiàn 共和县). The prefecture government is in Qiabuqia Town (qià bǔ qià zhèn 恰卜恰镇), which is 144 kilometers away from the capital Xining (xī níng 西宁). Its name literally means “south of Qinghai Lake”. The prefecture is subdivided into 5 county-level divisions: Gonghe County, Tongde County (tóng dé xiàn 同德县), Guide County (guì dé xiàn 贵德县), Xinghai County (xīng hǎi xiàn 兴海县) and Guinan County (guì nán xiàn 贵南县).


History

Before the Western Han Dynasty (206BC-24AD) brought this area into the domain of the central government, Hainan Prefecture was inhabited by the Qiang and Rong nationalities which were all ancient tribes in western China. In 1953, Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Region was established and changed to the Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture two years later.


Climate

The prefecture bears a continental plateau climate, featuring rarefied atmosphere, insufficient precipitation, long daylight hours and great temperature variation during a day and small temperate difference during a year. It is dry and windy in spring, rainy and dank in autumn. Summer is short and cool, while winter is long and chilly.


Attractions

Saizong Temple

Saizong Temple (sài zōng sì 赛宗寺), situated at the foot of Saizong Mountain, was built in 1923. The art of painting of the temple originated from Wutun (wǔ tún 武屯), Tongren County. Statues of Shijia, Lotus Platform and Zongkaba and Arecang's statue covered by a coat of gold not only draw on Indian representations such as jewelry in the middle of two eyebrows and bracelet on the wrists, but also assimilated the characters of Buddha of Han Nationality such as good looks, solemnity, gracefulness and benignity. Zhaojing and walls are decorated with Buddhism stories and colorful and vivid animals and mountains and rivers.

Saizong Temple is situated in the middle of Xinghai County district, 32 kilometers away from the capital of the county Ziketan (zǐ kē tān 子科滩). Saizong Mountain is one of three famous divine mountains in Tibetan people's legends among Duo'an area. The ancient temple and the famous mountain bring out the best in each other. The temple is famous for the mountain, while the mountain for the temple. Whenever the year of Monkey according to Tibetan calendar, thousands of believers from Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai come to pilgrim and visit the mountain at the exceptionally grand occasion. Whenever Tibetan Lunar Year of the Monkey, Sichuan, Gansu province and other provinces and tens of thousands of the masses of believers to come here to worship, to the mountains, unprecedented.

Location: 32 kilometers southwest of Xinghai Country, Qinghai Province
Tel: 0974-8582868
Transportation: There are direct buses at the bus station of Xinghai city.
Opening Hours: 8:00-18:00
Admission Fee: CNY10
Recommended Golden Season: April to October


Hebei Forest Natural Scenery

Hebei Forest Natural Scenery (hé běi yuán shǐ sēn lín 河北原始森林), situated in Tongde County, the south of Hainan Prefecture, includes Hebei and Xiumajiangqun natural forests with abundant recourse and a total area of 8,116 hectare. In the forests ancient trees are tall and lofty, while birds are twittering among deep grasses and blooming flowers, and cypress branches and pine branches add pleasure to each other. The ethic cultural activities are colorful and various, for Tibetan people are composed of 90 percent of the population, who are good at singing and dancing. With high level of artistic culture, here often hold large-scaled concerts and horse race fairs to attract tourists.

Location: In Tongde Country, Qinghai Province
Transportation: Take minibuses in Xining Bus Station to Tongde Country at the cost of CNY25.


Guide Ancient Architectural Complex of Ming and Qing Dynasties

Guide, situated in the Yellow River Valley, with Longyang Dam in its upper part and Songba Gorge in its lower part, is ringed with mountains with spacious land and fertile soil, and it is regarded as a miniature of Jiangnan (xiǎo jiāng nán 小江南). In recent years tourists from home and abroad, who are attracted by crystal water of the Yellow River in Guide, are surprised by a site with well preserved ancient buildings of Ming and Qing Dynasties.    

Guide ancient architectural complex of Ming and Qing Dynasties (guì dé míng qīng gǔ jiàn zhù qún 贵德明清古建筑群), covering an area of 61arces, with the building area of 4915 kilometers, is a range of unique and dedicate ancient temples incorporating Taoism, Confucius and Buddhism, abandoning sectarian bias but depending on each other for existence. The whole building is in the form of symmetry along its axis and the single building mainly draws from the ways of Gansu and Qinghai, which are of historical relic value and architectural value for their magnificence and rare layouts.


The Confucian temples consist of 12 single buildings like Lingxing door (líng xīng mén 棂星门), Banchi (pàn chí 泮池), Temples of famous officials (xiāng xián míng huàn cí 乡贤名宦祠), seventy-two temples (qī shí èr xián cí 七十二贤祠) and Dacheng hall (dà chéng diàn 大成殿) which is the place for enshrining the wise philosopher Confucius of Chinese nation and also a place for scholars sacrificing Confucius and getting together. Besides Yuhuang pavilion (yù huáng gé 玉皇阁) and Confucian temples, the ancient building ranges of Guide County also include Guanyue temple (guān yuè miào 关岳庙) which enshrines the gods of Guanyu (guān yǔ 关羽), Yuefei (yuè fēi 岳飞) and Mazu (mǎ zǔ 马祖), Han-styled architectures, the large Tibetan Buddhism Temple and Chenghuang Temple (chéng huáng miào 城隍庙) which remains 20-square-kilometer mural paintings of Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty.

Location: In Guide Country, Qinghai Province
Tel: 0971-33217708
Transportation: Take minibuses in Xining Bus Station to Guide Country at the cost of CNY17.
Admission Fee: CNY17


Guide Hot Spring
 
Guide Hot Spring (guì déwēn quán 贵德温泉), situated in the valley of the south of outside mouth of Dragon and Sheep Canyon and over 20 li away from the county, rises on three sides with dangerous rocks and folding peaks. The stones on the mountain are burned black with little vegetation covering on the mountain. The deep valley and stone chinks spurt Hot water, which becomes hot spring. From the surface of the spring steam rises, this is too hot to be touched by hands. Put a ware containing eggs in the hot spring, the eggs can be boiled within twenty minutes.

One can take a shower about 200 meters off the spring mouth, but the temperature is a little bit high. It is a beautiful legend that in the beginning at the creation of the world ten suns hung in the sky, which burn hot weather everywhere, people can not live. At that time a hero called Houyi (hòu yì 后羿) shot down nine suns with his consummate archery, leaving one sun in the sky; in this way the disaster was settled down. But the nine suns didn’t take that lying down; they got into the ground scattering on the ancient China and displaying their prowess. The one in Yongzhou (yōng zhōu 雍州) stayed in the underground of Wende Hot Spring; it was scorching hot, which made ground water often boiling and spurting out of the ground to form a hot spring. People who suffer dermatosis, cymodynia and physique ache and so on, from Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan or other neighboring provinces, walk for a long distance to the spring for curing and recuperation.      

Location: About 10 kilometers away from Guide Country, Qinghai Province
Transportation: Take minibuses in Xining Bus Station to Guide Country at the cost of CNY17.
Opening Hours: 09:00—23:00
Admission Fee: CNY40


Longyangxia Dam

After the Yellow River running through the Prairie of Qinghai, Longyangxia Dam (lóng yáng xiá shuǐ diàn zhàn 龙羊峡水电站)is the first opening entering the Yellow River valley area, with the mouth 30 meters wide and the hard granite erupting about 200 meters high on both sides, which is a precious place for Dam construction. It is the 1st large-scaled cascade hydroelectric power station, called the leading power station on the Yellow River, with a distance of 1684 kilometers from Yellow River's origin in the upward, a distance of 3376 kilometers from the convergence to the sea in the downward.

Longyangxia Dam is 40 kilometers long, 9 kilometers wide, with Yellow River running through in it. The whole valley is a huge natural reservoir, whose sides are precipitous Chana Mountain (chá nà shān 茶纳山) or continuous Plateau, and center is even, wide, and abundant basin. At the mouth nearby, the cliffs erect abruptly, the distance between the two banks that are 150 meters high of 30 meters length, which forms the unique place for building hydroelectric power station. The biggest dam in Longyangxia Dam hydroelectric power station whose whole length is of 1140 meters length is 178 meters high, entitled as the 1st dam in China and Asia, whose bottom is 80 meters wide and top 15 meters wide. And the main dam is 396 meters long and affiliated by high dams on both banks. The whole dam not only can stop the130, 000 kilometers flow of upper Yellow River, but will form the largest artificial reservoir in China covering an area of 380 kilometers with a capacity of 24,000,000,000 cubic meters.

The artificial reservoir in Longyangxia Dam has been an attractive landscape, with dams on the Yellow River and gorges above the lake, hills and blue sky reflected into water ripples. Circling the lake by boat, tourists feel comfortable and then sense that Yellow River here is crystal which is bestowed by Nature but explored by Man.

Location: In Gonghe Country, Qinghai Province
Tel: 0971-6122987
Admission Fee: CNY20


Specialties

Fritillary Bulb

Locally called Qingbei, that, “fritillary bulb of Qinghai,” as opposed to Chuanbei which grows in Sichuan, this bulb tastes bitter and sweet and has a slightly cold property. It is mainly used to reduce phlegm, stop coughs, reduce fever and act as an anticoagulant. It can treat consumptive coughing, coughing up of phlegm or blood, chest discomforts and various pulmonary disease.

Lurong

Lurong (lù róng 鹿茸), is the Chinese name of young pilose deer antler. Fortify the body and spirit, strengthen bone and marrow, and relax tensions. Modern Chinese medicine has shown Lurong to be effective against certain blood diseases.


Long-stalk Pear

Long-stalk Pear (cháng bǐng lí 长柄梨) can be found at Guide, Minhe, Ledu, Hualong and Jianzha. It is sweet in taste, a little cold in nature and attributive to the stomach and kidney meridians. This pear works especially well for those who suffer from dry coughing.The Long-stalk Pear which is produced in Guide is of best quality. In recent years, Guide has successfully hosted the seven conference of the pear Art Festival.


Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

Location: It is seated in the southeast region of Qinghai Province in neighborhood of Haidong Prefecture, Xining City and Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the east, Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the west and Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the south. In the north, it is separated from Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture by Qinghai Lake.
Transportation: Qinghai-Tibet Highway (National Highway No.109) and Qingkang Highway (National Highway No.214) all run through the prefecture. The south line of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway passes through Nanhai, running westward through the mouth of Riyue Mountain along the south bank of the Qinghai Lake. Bus station in Gonghe County is located at 9, Lvzhou Nan Lu. Furthermore, each county has its own bus stations in the county seat.
Recommended Golden Season: May to September is the beat time to visit Hainan Prefecture.
Tourist Complaints: 0909-2222859