Liupanshui (simplified Chinese: 六盘水) is a city whose urban area has 251,900 inhabitants in Western Guizhou province in the People's Republic of China. The population of its jurisdictional area (the prefecture-level city) has exceeded 2,830,000 as of 2006, and it is the second largest city in Guizhou. It has an area of 9,926 km².

The city was founded in 1978 as a prefecture-level municipality. It is known locally as "The Cool City" or "Cool Capital" due to its low average summer temperature.

Administrative divisions

Its administratively divided to the following county-level jurisdictions:

Liuzhi Special District 六枝特区

Pan County 盘县

Shuicheng County 水城县

Zhongshan District 钟山区

History

The general area is significant as the seat of the historic Yelang political entity, a confederation of tribes that dominated parts of modern day Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. The name of the city, Liupanshui六盘水） comes from the first characters of each county —— Liuzhi(六）), Panxian (（盘）),Shuicheng (水).

Tourism

Tourism in Liupanshui focuses on minority folk culture and karst landform tourism. This includes the underground lake in Qilin Cave Park 麒麟公园, Danxia Mountain 丹霞山, about which Xu Xiake, the Chinese travel writer and geographer of the Ming Dynasty, had written. Yushe National Park 玉舍国家公园 includes the Jiucai Ping Scenic Zone 韭菜坪景区. The flat-topped Jiucai Ping is the tallest mountain in Guizhou Province at about 2900 meters. Jiucai here means "garlic chives," so named because the mountain is famous for its Garlic chive blossoms. Other attractions include the sunrise, the sea of clouds, and unusual rock formations. Also notable is the Tiansheng Bridge 天生桥, "tiansheng" meaning "god-made." There is also a nature reserve called Shuicheng Francois's Leaf Monkey Nature Reserve 水城野钟黑叶猴自然保护区.