China Cave
Thousand Buddhas Cliff
18 °C inside, all year.
Reinhold Möller Ermell · CC BY-SA 4.0
The descent
The entrance, at 418 m.
The real relief above Thousand Buddhas Cliff, measured on the Copernicus model every 30 m, and the cave going down at the same vertical scale.
The depth is the one published by those who explored it; the shape of the galleries is a sketch, not a survey. No depth has been published for this cave yet.
418m
Entrance altitude
from the 30 m relief model
18°C
Inside, all year
the yearly average outside, at the entrance
307m
Rock above
the highest point within 1.5 km
Inside and outside
18 °C inside, all year.
Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 18 °C here, in January and in August. In July the afternoon reaches 32 °C at the entrance, 14 °C warmer than inside: take a jacket. The best months to escape the heat are from May to September. The wettest months are from June to September: water rises fast underground, so never go in without a guide after heavy rain.
- 11°1°Jan
- 14°4°Feb
- 20°9°Mar
- 25°14°Apr
- 29°18°May
- 31°21°Jun
- 32°23°Jul
- 31°23°Aug
- 27°19°Sep
- 22°14°Oct
- 18°9°Nov
- 12°3°Dec
Outside: afternoon and night averages for 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) brought to the altitude of the entrance. Inside: the yearly average, which deep parts of a cave keep. Near the entrance it follows the weather a little.
Grottoes in Jiajiang, Leshan, Sichuan, China
Thousand Buddhas Cliff is a cave in China. The entrance is at 418 m. It has an underground river.
Getting there.
- Wild cave: only with caving equipmentNo paths or lights inside. Go only with a caving club or a qualified guide.
- Yanchengnearest town · 2.5 km in a straight line
- 老成昆铁路青衣江大桥观景台nearest viewpoint · 2.1 km from the entrance
- Leshan Airport (LSG)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 40 km in a straight line
Plan the visit
Guided tours, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The water
The the river runs highest from August to September.
The the river carries about 340 m³/s on average here. It runs highest from August to September. It is lowest from December to April.
- 66 m³/sJan
- 68 m³/sFeb
- 110 m³/sMar
- 185 m³/sApr
- 282 m³/sMay
- 407 m³/sJun
- 699 m³/sJul
- 953 m³/sAug
- 884 m³/sSep
- 586 m³/sOct
- 265 m³/sNov
- 119 m³/sDec
From about 66 m³/s in the lowest month to 953 m³/s in the highest. Its basin above this point covers 12,602 km².
The Qingyi River from source to mouth on Riveryas — coming soon
Estimate: long-term flow from the HydroATLAS model (WaterGAP, 1971–2000) shaped by the monthly rain, snow and temperature of the area (NASA POWER). Dams change it. Not a forecast.
From above.
The ground above the cave, with the relief shaded, the line of the section and what people have mapped around the entrance.
N
1.5 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6.0 × 6.0 km, north up. The line is the section above. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Around the entrance.
- 1viewpoints within 3 km老成昆铁路青衣江大桥观景台
- 1car parks within 2 km
- 1bus stops within 2 km
- 2hotels and guesthouses within 8 km国氏人文酒店
- 2restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- other cave entrances within 3 km
- springs within 2 km
- sinkholes within 3 km
- caving clubs and spots within 15 km
- marked hiking routes within 3 km
- climbing crags within 3 km
- named waterfalls within 4 km
- information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
- campsites within 8 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, around the entrance. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Towns nearby
- Yancheng2.5 km in a straight line
- Suishan17 km in a straight line
In our other atlases
What else is around Thousand Buddhas Cliff.
The river at the entrance, the waterfalls, the lakes, the mountains and volcanoes above, the canyons, beaches and islands nearby — from our other atlases.
Riveryas1 rivers at the entranceFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, NOAA, OpenStreetMap). Links open when each site is online.
Month by month
The weather outside, at the entrance.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon | 11 | 14 | 20 | 25 | 29 | 31 | 32 | 31 | 27 | 22 | 18 | 12 |
| Afternoon | 11 | 14 | 20 | 25 | 29 | 31 | 32 | 31 | 27 | 22 | 18 | 12 |
| Night | 1 | 4 | 9 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 23 | 23 | 19 | 14 | 9 | 3 |
| Rain (mm) | 14 | 18 | 42 | 77 | 112 | 153 | 262 | 273 | 142 | 69 | 29 | 14 |
| Rainy days | 4 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 17 | 19 | 22 | 22 | 20 | 16 | 7 | 4 |
| Sun hours/day | 2.4 | 2.2 | 2.4 | 3.3 | 3.1 | 2.6 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 1.2 | 1.0 | 1.8 | 2.3 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 5 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Afternoon | Afternoon | Night | Rain (mm) | Sun hours/day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 11 | 11 | 1 | 14 | 2.4 |
| Feb | 14 | 14 | 4 | 18 | 2.2 |
| Mar | 20 | 20 | 9 | 42 | 2.4 |
| Apr | 25 | 25 | 14 | 77 | 3.3 |
| May | 29 | 29 | 18 | 112 | 3.1 |
| Jun | 31 | 31 | 21 | 153 | 2.6 |
| Jul | 32 | 32 | 23 | 262 | 3.2 |
| Aug | 31 | 31 | 23 | 273 | 3.3 |
| Sep | 27 | 27 | 19 | 142 | 1.2 |
| Oct | 22 | 22 | 14 | 69 | 1.0 |
| Nov | 18 | 18 | 9 | 29 | 1.8 |
| Dec | 12 | 12 | 3 | 14 | 2.3 |
Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (418 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.
Photographs
Inside and around.
Recent years
Wet years, dry years.
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A dry year means a lower river and hotter rock; a wet one, more water in the gorge.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 129% | 98% | 120% | 83% | 102% | 104% | 119% | 180% | 144% | 127% | 59% | 187% |
| 2021 | 171% | 140% | 94% | 106% | 146% | 92% | 105% | 156% | 178% | 104% | 98% | 110% |
| 2022 | 149% | 181% | 130% | 209% | 189% | 104% | 70% | 57% | 97% | 75% | 70% | 98% |
| 2023 | 64% | 110% | 155% | 125% | 88% | 40% | 107% | 128% | 111% | 118% | 126% | 11% |
| 2024 | 146% | 101% | 82% | 196% | 147% | 77% | 149% | 57% | 209% | 121% | 143% | 176% |
| 2025 | 199% | 230% | 137% | 114% | 116% | 112% | 86% | 169% | 144% | 125% | 110% | 52% |
130% or more: wet month 70% or less: dry month
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, published depth and length, visitors | Wikidata (Q21017454) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| The relief above, the entrance altitude, the section and the 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| River flow and basin | HydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Entrances, springs, sinkholes, opening hours and what is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Rivers, waterfalls, lakes, mountains, canyons, beaches and islands nearby | Coastya, Lakeyas, Peakyas, Cascadyas, Islandyas, Riveryas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
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