Lijiang Lashihai Hot Springs
- Location
- Lijiang, Yunnan, China
- Water type
- bicarbonate
- Temperature
- 38 °C
- pH
- 7.6
Water profile
Soothing — neither hot nor cold, perfect balance.
Loaded with major ions — the essential minerals (Ca, Mg).
Soft water — natural, classic buoyancy.
The hot springs around Lijiang in Yunnan province offer a form of thermal bathing deeply embedded in the culture of the Naxi people — one of China's most distinctive ethnic minorities, known for their matriarchal social organisation and the pictographic Dongba script, one of the last living pictographic writing systems in the world. The bicarbonate springs emerge from the geologically active foothills of the Hengduan Mountains, the extraordinary north-south mountain ranges of Yunnan where the Yangtze, Mekong and Salween rivers run in parallel gorges. The Naxi bathing tradition, incorporating herbal preparations and communal practices rooted in Dongba cosmology, gives the thermal experience a cultural dimension unavailable anywhere else. The backdrop of Lijiang's UNESCO-listed old town, with the snow-capped Jade Dragon Snow Mountain rising behind, makes for an unforgettable thermal setting.