Scenic area · Historic city · Guizhou
Anshun
安顺
Huangguoshu Waterfall and the Ming garrison villages
Anshun is a prefecture-level city in west-central Guizhou, on the old road from Guiyang to Yunnan. Its jurisdiction includes the Huangguoshu Waterfall, the best-known waterfall of south-west China, the Dragon Palace cave system, and the tunpu villages whose people descend from Ming garrison soldiers and keep up the masked Dixi opera.
Key facts
Overview
Anshun lies on a karst plateau between Guiyang and the deep gorges of the Beipan River. The Ming made it a key station on the post road to Yunnan, and the fortified villages of the soldiers settled here in the fourteenth century still stand around the city, their inhabitants preserving costume, speech and customs of the early Ming.
Today Anshun is visited mainly for its natural sites — the Huangguoshu Waterfall and the neighbouring Doupotang and Tianxingqiao falls, the Longgong cave with its underground river — and for its batik and Dixi opera. It is also a centre of Guizhou's aviation industry, built during the Third Front.
Names and nicknames
中国瀑布之乡
“home of China's waterfalls”
For Huangguoshu and the many other falls of the Baishui River and its neighbours.
屯堡
The name of the fortified garrison villages is often used for the whole Anshun region and its culture.
History
The area belonged to the lands of the Buyei and Miao and to the Yelang sphere in antiquity. In 1381–1382 the Ming army that conquered Yunnan left garrisons along the post road, settling soldiers and their families in fortified villages; these tunpu communities are the origin of the region's distinctive Han culture. Anshun became a prefecture under the Ming and Qing and a trading town on the road to Yunnan. The Communist leader Wang Ruofei was born here in 1896. From the 1960s aircraft factories were built in the surrounding hills.
1381–1382
Ming conquest of Yunnan and garrison settlement
Soldiers from Jiangnan and elsewhere were settled in fortified villages along the post road through Anshun.
1638
Xu Xiake describes Huangguoshu
The Ming travel writer visited the waterfall and recorded it in his diaries — the earliest detailed description.
1896
Wang Ruofei born in Anshun
Later a leader of the Communist Party, killed in a plane crash in 1946.
1960s
Third Front aviation industry
Aircraft and engine plants were built in and around Anshun, which remains a centre of the aviation industry.
Landmarks
Nature
Huangguoshu Waterfall
黄果树瀑布
Waterfall on the Baishui River about 78 m high and over 100 m wide in the rainy season, with a cave passage behind the curtain of water.
Nature
Tianxingqiao
天星桥
Karst area of stone paths, pools, bonsai-like trees and a natural bridge near Huangguoshu.
Nature
Longgong (Dragon Palace)
龙宫
Cave system with an underground river navigated by boat, and a waterfall inside a cave.
Historic site
Tianlong Tunpu
天龙屯堡
Stone-built garrison village where women still wear the long blue gowns of early Ming style and Dixi opera is performed.
Historic site
Anshun Confucian Temple
安顺文庙
Ming–Qing temple complex known for its carved stone dragon columns.
Neighbourhoods
Xixiu
西秀区
The city centre and its surrounding tunpu villages.
Zhenning
镇宁
Buyei and Miao autonomous county containing Huangguoshu.
Food
Guojuan
裹卷
Thin rice sheets rolled around shredded vegetables and eaten with a chilli dip.
Buckwheat jelly
荞凉粉
Cold buckwheat jelly cut into strips with chilli, vinegar and garlic.
Flaky steamed buns
破酥包
Layered steamed buns with pork filling, sold at breakfast.
Culture
Anshun is best known for two living traditions. The tunpu villages preserve customs brought by Ming soldiers from the lower Yangtze — the women's gowns, embroidered shoes, stone architecture and the Dixi, a masked opera performed at the Spring Festival and in the seventh lunar month. And the Buyei and Miao villages of the region are centres of batik, which is also produced in town workshops.
Mountains and nature nearby
Getting around
- Anshun West station is on the Shanghai–Kunming high-speed line; the older Anshun station has conventional trains.
- Huangguoshu, Longgong and the tunpu villages are reached by road from the city; expressways link Anshun with Guiyang and the Gui'an New Area.
- Anshun Huangguoshu Airport serves the city.
Day trips
Getu River
格凸河
Karst river in Ziyun county with a great natural arch and a Miao village in a cave.
Zhijin Cave
织金洞
One of China's largest show caves, in neighbouring Bijie, with enormous chambers and stalagmites.
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- Anshun Municipal People's Government — Anshun Municipal People's Government (retrieved 27 September 2026)
- Seventh National Population Census communiqués — National Bureau of Statistics of China (retrieved 27 September 2026)
- Anshun — Encyclopaedia Britannica (retrieved 27 September 2026)