[Photo from guilin.com]

Located in the center of Guilin, West Hill occupies an area of 1.25 million square meters. Over a thousand years ago, West Hill was already a famous tourist spot and is the first tourist area to have been developed in Guilin.

[Photo from guilin.com]

The whole scenic area consists of West Hill, West Lake and Hidden Hill (Yinshan). The mountains circle around the West Lake and the Peach Blossom River, constituting a wonderful scene. At dusk, the sun projects its rays on the peaks, creating a beautiful image. The ‘Sunset at West Hill’ is one of the eight famous scenes in Guilin.

The West Hill also offers visitors a profound display of culture. It is home to Xi Qinglin Temple, one of the Five Buddhist temples in South China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). There are over 1000 stone inscriptions and cliff-side statues from the Tang Dynasty, making up a history of over a thousand years and making them the earliest and most numerous examples in Guilin. The area has attracted many great historical figures, such as Buddhist monk Jian Zhen of the Tang Dynasty, great literati Mi Fu and Fan Chengda of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), travel writer and geographer Xu Xiake and patriot and military commander Yuan Chonghuan of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and prominent warlord and Kuomintang military commander Li Zongren, epoch-making painter Xu Beihong and prominent novelist and dramatist Lao She of the Republican period.