At the southern feet of the high an precipitous Ailao an Liushao Mountains, there extends a vast stretch of beautiful richly endowed and mystical land. This is the Honghe (Red River) Autonomous Prefecture of Hani an Yi Nationalities, much alike a piece of green precious stone inlaid at the southernmost end of China.

The Honghe River flows from the west to the east across the prefecture. Found in this area are dense tropical rain forests like many green peaks rising one higher than another, immense variety of karst landforms, many deep mirror-like plateau lakes, magnificent views of seas of clouds in the valleys and ravines, tiers upon tiers of terraced fields which reach to the sky, and rich rare-metal resources renown home and abroad.

Location

Honghe Hani & Yi Autonomous Prefecture, founded on Novermber 18th,1957 consists of the original Mengzi prefecture, Honghe Hani & Yi Prefecture and Gejiu, a city under provincial jurisdiction. It was named after the Honghe river which flows across its cities and counties.

Honghe Prefecture is located in south of Yunnan province with a borderline of 848 kilometers. it borders with 6 counties, two provinces and Republic Vietnam.There are two first-grade trading ports of the State, namely Hekou and Jinshuihe. It covers an area of 32931 square kilometers and administrates two cities, namely Gejiu and Kaiyuan,11 counties amely Mengzi, Jianshui, Shiping, Mile, Luxi, Pingbian, Hekou, Jinping, Yuanyang, Honghe and Luchun.

Major Nationalities

Besides Han nationalities there are 9 other ethnic minorities .i.e. Hani, YI, Miao, Dai, Zhuang, Yao, Hui, Lahu and Buyi, that dwell in the prefecture. It is the main area in which Hani and Yi as well as Hui minorities live.

Topography

Honghe Hani & Yi Autonomous Prefecture is situated in the region of plateau monsoon with low latitude and with the Tropic of Cancer crossing through its middle continent. Topographically it has various types of topography ranging from high mountains with the altitude of 3074.7 meters to river valleys of 76.4 meters.

Climate

Vertically tropical and subtropical climates are dominate with dry and wet seasons, which make the weather neither very hot in summer nor cold in winter. Therefore all four seasons are like spring. The climate may change dramatically at different altitudes. Thus it is said "there are four seasons in a mountain but the climate is different within 5 kilometers".