Zhangjiajie Overview

As one of the most important tourism cities in China, Zhangjiajie is located in the northwest part of Hunan province, which is 390 kilometers (242 miles) from Changsha City and 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the Three Gorges in the Yangtze River, and it 167 kilometers (104 miles) long from west to east and 96 kilometers (60 miles) wide from south to north, covering an area of 9,653 square kilometers (3,727 square miles) with Yun-Gui Plateau in the west, Dongting Lake in the east and Xuefeng Mountain in the south.

Zhangjiajie City administers 2 districts and 2 counties, namely: Yongding District and Wulingyuan District; Cili County and Sangzhi County. Zhangjiajie is a multi-ethnic area with a total population of 1.63million in the city, among which 0.514 million people are urban residents, and there are more than 1.118 ethnic minority people such as Tujia and Bai ethnic minorities inhabiting in the city with the Han Nationality people, who take up 69% of the whole population.

The topography of Changsha lowers from the northwest to the southeast, and the fantastic Karst landform is distributed in the area in a large scale. The highest peak in the city is Doupeng Peak with an altitude of 1,890 meters (6,201 feet) above the sea level and the lowest altitude is 75 meters (246 feet) above the sea level.

Zhangjiajie became the first National Forest Park in 1982 and it was enlisted in World Heritage list by UNESCO in 1992.