Yunnan Province

General Info about Yunnan

History of Yunnan

Traveling to Yunnan

Sightseeing in Yunnan

Yunnan - General Info

Location

Yunnan’s 394000 km2 surface area is located in the south-west of China. The province is enclosed by Sichuan and Tibet in the north-west, Myanmar and Laos in the south-west Laos and Vietnam in the south. Because of its location Yunnan province has always been under the influence of the neighboring countries, which made Yunnan a doubtful area as Chinese territory.

Capital city

The capital of Yunnan is Kunming. The city has a great history going back for more than 2000 years. During these years Kunming has been captured by dynasties and rebellions for several times. Today’s Kunming has a population of 1,5 million people, which offering a reasonable amount of sights, but the climate is what Kunming makes attractive to visit for tourist, the most. 

Population

Yunnan’s 34 million people are divided over 25 officially recognized minorities, which all have there own culture, languages and characterizing people. Therefore Yunnan is the most mixed province of China. China officially recognizes 55 minorities, what means that almost half of them can be founded in Yunnan. The most important reason is the location between several other countries. This means that the province has been influenced by many other cultures and countries, for centuries.

Weather

The diverse landscape of Yunnan makes it difficult to define a climate. Therefore it is easier to divide the country into climatic zones. In Yunnan you can recognize 3 kinds of climates, also called the “Three dimensional Climate”: temperate, sub-tropical and tropical changing over 4 regions: the low, hot river valleys, mountain areas and frigid highlands. The seasonal changes are small, but the changes in day-and-night temperature are in contrary much bigger.
The average annual temperature is the lowest in the northwest, 7 degrees Celsius increasing more southward to 22 degrees Celsius on average in the Yuanjiang River Valley. Furthermore the rain-season start in May till October and it accounts for 83% of the abundant rainfall of 750mm-1750mm annually.