China · Guangxi
Guilin
China's most painted landscape, with a river cruise through the karst as the set piece and the Dragon's Backbone terraces two hours north.
Guilin sits at the head of the Li River in southern China, where limestone towers rise straight out of the paddy and the water bends between them. It is the landscape on a thousand scroll paintings, and the four-hour cruise downstream through it is the set piece of the trip. The city itself is low and green, strung with lakes and pierced by its own karst peaks, and the terraced mountains of Longji stand two hours north.
Suggested stay
2–4 days
Language
Mandarin Chinese
Currency
CNY
Timezone
UTC+8
Why you'll love Guilin
The Li River the cruise downstream runs four hours past karst towers, bamboo banks, water buffalo and fishing rafts, and it earns every bit of the reputation.
Peaks in the street Guilin's hills sit inside the city - climb Diecai or Fubo early and the whole karst basin opens out below you.
Longji terraces two hours north, whole mountainsides are carved into rice steps that mirror the sky when flooded and turn gold at harvest.
Rice noodles the city eats Guilin mifen from first thing in the morning, topped with fried soybeans, pickled beans and thin-sliced beef at counters on every block.
Best time to visit
Feb, Sep-Dec
14-31° days
25.278° N, 110.291° E
UTC+8 · Asia/Shanghai
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Weather & when to go to Guilin
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Feb, Sep-Dec
Watch for May-Jul monsoon flooding risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Guilin
Late spring into midsummer is the wet, sticky heart of the year here: the heaviest rain of the monsoon, hot airless afternoons and a river running high and brown. It is also when Longji's terraces are flooded and at their most photogenic, so photographers put up with it on purpose.
Top things to do in Guilin
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Li River cruise - four hours downstream to Yangshuo
scenic nature wildlife 👍 PopularThe set-piece trip: flat-topped boats leave in the morning from a pier south of the city and drift eighty-odd kilometres through the karst to Yangshuo, past bamboo, buffalo, fishing rafts and the ridgelines that turn up on scroll paintings. Cruises run downstream only, so you come back by road, or simply stay on at the far end.
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Elephant Trunk Hill - the city's emblem on the water
scenic history 👍 PopularA limestone bluff where the Peach Blossom River runs into the Li, with an arched cave beneath it that reads as a trunk dipping into the water, and the small Ming-era Puxian Pagoda on top. It is the postcard image of Guilin and busy accordingly; the view from the far bank costs nothing and is often the better one.
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Reed Flute Cave - a floodlit chamber under the hills
nature wildlife history 👍 PopularA vast limestone cave on the north-west edge of the city, hung with stalactites and lit in colours that are either the best or the worst thing about it, depending on your taste. Look for the wall of ink inscriptions left by Tang-dynasty visitors, the quiet reminder that people have been coming down here for over a thousand years.
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Solitary Beauty Peak - climb the Ming prince's private hill
history culture arts ⭐ Highly recommendedA single rock tower standing inside the walls of the Jingjiang Princes' City, a mansion begun for a kinsman of the first Ming emperor decades before the Forbidden City and now a university campus. Steep steps run to the top for the best view over the centre, and the line calling Guilin's scenery the finest under heaven is cut into the rock at the base.
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Yao Mountain - chairlift to the full karst panorama
scenic nature wildlife ⭐ Highly recommendedThe high ridge east of the city, reached by chairlift, with the widest view there is of Guilin's peaks running to the horizon. The slopes turn red with maple in autumn, there is a toboggan run back down for anyone who wants it, and the tombs of the Ming princes lie scattered around the foot of the hill.
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Two Rivers and Four Lakes - the night boat through the centre
scenicThe lakes and rivers of the old town were relinked into a loop, and small boats work it after dark through a string of deliberately showy bridges, past the copper-clad Sun and Moon pagodas standing lit in Shan Lake. Pure spectacle rather than history, and a good evening. The whole circuit also walks in a couple of hours.
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Seven Star Park - camel hill, caves and a forest of steles
nature wildlife historyThe biggest park in Guilin, over on the quieter east bank: a walk-through cave, the humped rock everybody photographs as a camel, and the Guihai stele forest, where centuries of officials and exiles had their poems and grievances cut into the cliff. Locals use it as a park rather than a sight, which is most of the appeal.
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Guilin rice noodles - the breakfast the city runs on
foodGuilin mifen is round rice noodle under a spoonful of dark brine-braised broth, fried soybeans, pickled long beans and a slice or two of beef, mixed dry and then flooded with soup from the urn if you want it. Add the local chilli sauce, one of the three things the city sends out to the rest of China.
Best areas to stay in Guilin
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Central Lakes (Zhengyang Street)
First-time visitors $$Walkable core, lake promenades, pedestrian food street
Explore hotels in Central Lakes (Zhengyang Street) →
Binjiang Road riverfront
River views $$$Li River frontage, willows, early morning light
Explore hotels in Binjiang Road riverfront →
Qixing, east bank
Quiet and local $$Greener, quieter, ordinary working-city side
Explore hotels in Qixing, east bank →
Railway station area (Zhongshan South Road)
Budget and transport $Functional, budget, transport on the doorstep
Explore hotels in Railway station area (Zhongshan South Road) →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Guilin
Getting to & around Guilin
Getting there
Fly into Guilin Liangjiang (KWL) west of the city, or arrive by high-speed train at Guilin North.
Flight
Guilin Liangjiang International Airport (KWL)
The airport is around thirty kilometres west of the centre, roughly forty-five minutes by taxi. Airport shuttle buses run into town through the day and set down near the railway station, a short ride or a long walk from the lakes and most central hotels.
Train
Guilin North (Guilin Bei)
The main high-speed station, north of the centre. Guilin sits on the fast line running down from Guiyang to Guangzhou, which puts the Pearl River Delta and Nanning within a few hours. Some services use the central Guilin Station or Guilin West instead, so check which one the ticket names.
Train
Yangshuo station
Fast trains also stop at Yangshuo station, a short hop south of Guilin - though the station itself is still a fair drive from Yangshuo town.
Coach
Guilin bus stations
Long-distance buses cover what the trains do not, including the run north-west to Longsheng for the Longji terraces and on towards Sanjiang.
Getting around
Walking
The lake circuit, the pedestrian street and the river path are flat and joined up.
Free
City bus
Dense network, including sightseeing routes that string the hill parks together. There is no metro.
TBC
Taxi and ride-hailing
Plentiful, and the usual way out to Reed Flute Cave, Yao Mountain or the cruise pier.
TBC
Shared bike or e-bike
Suits the flat centre and the lake loop; less fun in the summer rain.
TBC
Sightseeing boat
The Two Rivers and Four Lakes loop is a circuit rather than transport, but it does cross the middle of town.
TBC
Day trips from Guilin
Li River cruise to Yangshuo
Full dayKarst river cruise
The classic run through the karst, ending at Yangshuo, which makes a good base in its own right if you would rather not come back the same day. Boats go downstream only and leave in the morning, and when the river is low they board further along, which shortens the best of the scenery.
Getting there
bus | ferry | tour
About forty minutes by road to the pier, then a four-hour cruise downstream; most people bus back, or stay on
Longji Rice Terraces
Full dayTerraced rice mountains
Whole mountainsides above Longsheng cut into rice steps by Zhuang and Yao villagers and still worked by hand. Ping'an is the easier base, Dazhai the bigger and steeper one with cable cars. The terraces mirror the sky when flooded in early summer, run green through the wet months and go gold at harvest. Village lanes are stairs, so pack light.
Getting there
bus | car | tour
Two to two and a half hours each way by bus, car or tour, then a shuttle up from the scenic-area gate
Daxu Ancient Town
Half dayRiverside market town
A Ming and Qing trading town strung along the Li River east of the city, with a long flagstone street, stone landings down to the water and shops still selling rope, herbs and coffins to people who actually need them. Quiet, barely restored, and refreshingly unticketed.
Getting there
bus | car
About forty minutes downstream by road or local bus
Xing'an and the Lingqu Canal
Half dayAncient Qin canal
Qin engineers cut a canal here in the third century BC to join the Xiang and the Li, linking the Yangtze and Pearl river systems, and it still moves water between them. An old street runs alongside it, and Maoer Mountain, the source of the Li and the highest peak in Guangxi, rises to the north.
Getting there
train | car | bus
About an hour north by train or road
Sanjiang and the Dong villages
1-2 daysDong minority villages
Dong carpenters build drum towers and covered wind-and-rain bridges in wood without nails, and the finest of them span the river at Chengyang. Far enough out that most people give it a night, tacked onto the terraces rather than run from Guilin and back.
Getting there
train | bus | car
Around three hours north-west by road, or by train to Sanjiang; usually strung together with Longji
A little history of Guilin
Guilin's story starts with water. In 214 BC Qin engineers cut the Lingqu Canal at Xing'an to join the Xiang and the Li, linking the Yangtze and Pearl river systems and floating an army south; a garrison town grew on the river below it and became a county under the Han. Tang and Song officials posted to this far corner found the peaks worth writing about, had their poems carved into the cliffs, and left behind the line that Guilin's scenery is the finest under heaven. In 1372 the first Ming emperor gave a kinsman a princedom here and a walled mansion at the foot of Solitary Beauty Peak, decades before the Forbidden City went up.
The city was Guangxi's capital on and off until the provincial government settled on Nanning. In the late 1930s it filled with writers, printers and refugees driven south by the war with Japan, then was fought over and largely flattened in 1944. Rebuilt, it became one of the first Chinese cities reopened to foreign visitors in the 1970s, and the Li River cruise turned into a fixture of state visits and package tours alike; high-speed rail arrived in 2014 and brought the weekend crowds up from Guangzhou.
Qin engineers complete the Lingqu Canal at Xing'an, linking the Yangtze and Pearl river systems.
The Han establish a county on the Li River, the seed of the city.
City walls go up and Buddhist figures are carved into the riverside cliffs at Fubo Hill and West Hill.
The line calling Guilin's scenery the finest under heaven is cut into the rock at Solitary Beauty Peak.
Work begins on the Jingjiang Princes' City, the walled Ming mansion around the peak.
Guilin, one of the last strongholds of the Southern Ming, falls to the Qing.
Japanese forces take the city in the Ichi-Go offensive and most of it is destroyed.
Among the first Chinese cities reopened to foreign tourists, with the Li River cruise as the draw.
High-speed rail reaches Guilin, putting Guangzhou within a few hours.
Know before you go
Payment
Cash preferred
English
Limited
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type A / I
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+86
Monsoon flooding risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
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FAQs about Guilin
▸ When is the best time to visit Guilin?
Autumn is the sweet spot: clear air, the hills at their sharpest and the osmanthus the city is named for scenting the streets. Winter is cool, grey and much quieter. Late spring and early summer bring the heaviest rain and the stickiest heat, and midsummer is no better - though that wet stretch is exactly when the rice terraces are flooded and mirror-like.
▸ Guilin or Yangshuo - where should you stay?
They do different jobs. Guilin has the airport, the fast trains, the city hills and caves, and the departures for the terraces; Yangshuo, at the far end of the cruise, has the countryside and the karst at close range. Plenty of people take a night or two in each and use the cruise as the transfer between them.
▸ What should you know before booking the Li River cruise?
It runs one way, downstream to Yangshuo, and the boats leave in the morning, so it takes the day. Departures are from a pier well outside the city rather than the centre. When the river is low the boats board further down, which shortens the scenery. Bamboo rafts cover shorter stretches near Yangshuo if the full cruise does not appeal.
▸ How many days do you need in Guilin?
Two days covers the city - the hills, the caves, the lakes and the noodles. Three or four lets you add the Li River cruise and a full day at the Longji terraces without rushing either, and stretches further if you carry on to Yangshuo instead of doubling back.
▸ When are the Longji rice terraces at their best?
There is no bad version of them. They fill with water and mirror the sky in early summer, stand deep green through the wet months, and turn gold in the weeks before the autumn harvest, which is the most photographed window and the most crowded. Winter strips them back to bare earth and stone, sometimes with a dusting of snow.
▸ How busy does Guilin get?
Very, at the wrong moment. This is one of the fixtures of domestic Chinese tourism, and the national holiday weeks in autumn and around Lunar New Year fill every boat, viewpoint and hotel. Outside those the hill parks and the cruise still run on tour-group time, so an early start buys you an hour of quiet.
▸ Do you need to arrange anything in advance?
Carry your passport: it is the ID that buys train tickets, gets you through station gates and admits you to ticketed scenic areas, several of which prefer a reservation to a walk-up on busy days. The Li River cruise and transport to the Longji terraces are the two things worth sorting before the morning you want them.
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