Yunnan, on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in the southwest of China lying just below the Tibetan Plateau and abutting Vietnam, Laos and Burma, is a mysterious land of great natural beauty. It covers an area of 394,000 square kilometers, and has a population of 40,000,000. Even today many Chinese think of it as a " frontier province " In few provinces of China is so great a diversity of natural conditions and culture to be found as in Yunnan.

Yunnan has an unique array of fascinating ecotourist resources, including mountains and glaciers snow-capped all year round, lakes and hot springs, alpine landscapes, primeval temperate woodland, and tropical rain forests where elephants and monkeys roam . Forests, totaling nearly 10 million hectares, or eight percent of the nation's total, cover 24.9 percent of the land of Yunnan, which is China's haven for plants and animals.