Guilin

Overview

Guilin is the city where southern China’s karst hills stand inside the streets, and the starting point for the Li River boat to Yangshuo. The Li runs through the middle of town and continues 83 km south to Yangshuo, the stretch that every cruise, banknote and school textbook is about. The hills are limestone towers of the kind geologists call fenglin, isolated peaks rising straight out of a flat plain, and the Guilin karst was added to the South China Karst World Heritage listing in the 2014 extension of the original 2007 inscription.

The phrase every Chinese visitor arrives with, Guilin shanshui jia tianxia (“Guilin’s scenery is the best under heaven”), is credited to the Song dynasty poet Fan Chengda, and the city has never needed a second slogan. The name itself means “forest of sweet osmanthus”, after the trees that scent the streets in autumn. Guilin was the capital of Guangxi until 1912 and again from 1936 to 1949, before the job moved to Nanning in 1950, so what you get today is a former provincial capital with the monuments of one and the traffic of one: about 1.7 million people in the urban area and nearly 5 million across the prefecture at the 2020 census.

Most visitors give Guilin one or two nights. That is enough for a lap of the lakes, one or two of the named peaks, a breakfast bowl of rice noodles and the boat south, which is the reason most people are here at all. The catch is that the peaks, caves and cruises all charge separately and add up fast, while the best things in the city (the lakeside walk after dark, the riverbank view of Elephant Trunk Hill, the noodle counters) cost nothing or almost nothing. Yangshuo downstream has the same scenery packed closer together and a smaller-town feel, which is why plenty of people sleep there instead and treat Guilin as the airport, the high-speed rail station and the pier. Both approaches work; the difference is whether you want a city evening or a village one before the river.

Neighbourhoods

Guilin’s centre is compact: the Li River on the east, the ring of lakes on the west and south, and everything a visitor uses within a half-hour walk. The built-up city is divided among six urban districts, Xiufeng, Xiangshan, Diecai, Qixing, Yanshan and Lingui; the first four cover the areas you will actually walk, and Lingui, out towards the airport, is the new administrative city.

Centre: Zhengyang Lu and the lakes

Zhengyang Lu, the pedestrianised main shopping street, is the address hotels measure their distance from, and Central Square, a 51,400 m² open space, sits beside it. Rong Lake and Shan Lake, the two lakes on the west and south of the old core, give the centre its promenade; Shan Lake is where the Sun and Moon Pagodas stand, the Moon Pagoda on an island and the Sun Pagoda out in the water. Stay here if you want to walk to everything and eat without planning.

Binjiang Lu: the river side

Binjiang Lu runs along the west bank of the Li and holds the Sheraton, the Eva Inn and a row of restaurants and bars with river views; Elephant Trunk Hill park is at its southern end, where the Taohua (Peach Blossom) River meets the Li. Quieter than Zhengyang Lu after dark, and the place to be if you want the hills across the water from your window.

North: the princely city and Diecai

The northern end of the centre is the walled Jingjiang Princes’ City, now the campus of Guangxi Normal University with Solitary Beauty Peak inside the walls, and beyond it Diecai (Folded Brocade) Hill and Fubo Hill stand on the riverbank. Student cafes and cheaper rooms come with the university. Guilin North station is further out in Diecai district, on Zhanqian Lu.

East bank: Qixing and Chuanshan

Across the river, Qixing district takes its name from Seven Star Park, the biggest green space in the city and a 15 to 20 minute walk from the pedestrian area. Chuanshan Nan Lu, near the Chuanshan Bridge, is where a cluster of the city’s late bars sits. Residential otherwise, and a good side of the river for an evening walk along the bank looking back at the lit-up centre.

South: around Guilin station

Guilin railway station, the central one, is on Zhongshan Nanlu at the southern edge of the core, and the streets around it are the budget-hotel and bus zone. Convenient for an early train or the Yangshuo minibuses, and no reason to stay otherwise.

Lingui and the airport

Lingui, west of the city, is where the airport sits and where the first demonstration section of the monorail was built. Government offices and new housing; nothing for a visitor beyond the flight.

See & do

Guilin’s sights are the named karst peaks, two caves, the lake loop and the river. Admission prices below are the figures Wikivoyage last listed; they rise regularly, so treat them as a guide to relative cost rather than gospel and check at your hotel.

Two Rivers and Four Lakes

The Li and Taohua rivers and the four lakes of the old centre are joined into a single loop of water, and the walk around Rong Lake and Shan Lake is free and the best hour you will spend in the city. The Sun and Moon Pagodas on Shan Lake are the centrepiece: the Sun Pagoda is 41 m and nine storeys, faced in bronze, the Moon Pagoda 35 m and seven storeys in glazed tile, both rebuilt in 2001 on the site of Tang dynasty originals and linked by a glass tunnel under the lake. The lift in the Sun Pagoda only goes to the sixth level; the rest is stairs. Open 08:00 to 22:00, ¥35, and best seen lit up after dark.

The boat version is the Two Rivers and Four Lakes cruise: about 90 minutes, sailings from 09:00 to 21:30 every half hour, ¥200 (¥180 off-season), with a cormorant fishing demonstration at the midpoint. The evening sailings, when the bridges and pagodas are illuminated, are the ones worth paying for.

Elephant Trunk Hill

The hill at the confluence of the Taohua and Li rivers is the symbol of the city, named because it looks like an elephant drinking; the round opening under the trunk is the Water-Moon Cave, and at night the moon’s reflection sits in the arch as if floating on the water. The park entrance is on Binjiang Lu, open 07:00 to 22:00, ¥75, on buses 16 and 23 or a short walk from the centre. The arch is visible from the riverbank outside the park, which is a lot of the reason to think twice about the ticket.

Solitary Beauty Peak and the Jingjiang Princes’ City

The walled compound at the north of the centre was built between 1372 and 1392 for Zhu Shouqian, great-nephew of the first Ming emperor, and 14 princes across 12 generations lived here over 257 years until the dynasty fell. A 1,500 m wall of square bluestone survives, and the peak in the middle carries 136 cliff inscriptions, among them the “Guilin’s scenery excels all” line carved more than 800 years ago. The compound is ¥100 and opens 07:30 to 18:30 from 1 May to 7 October (shorter hours in winter); the peak climb is listed separately at ¥70, 08:00 to 17:00; buses 1 and 2 from Guilin railway station. This is the central viewpoint, with the whole ring of lakes and the river below you.

Fubo Hill, Diecai Hill and Seven Star Park

Fubo Hill, on the Li bank northeast of the centre, has Tang dynasty stone carvings and Buddhist inscriptions in its caves and charges ¥30. Diecai (Folded Brocade) Hill, a little further north, is a stone staircase up to the broadest panorama of the river bend, open 08:30 to 17:30, ¥35, on buses 2, 13 and 58. Seven Star Park on the east bank takes in seven hills, the Camel Hill formation and the Seven Star Cave complex; ¥50 for the park, with the zoo (giant and red pandas) at ¥32 extra and the cave at ¥60 extra.

Reed Flute Cave

About 5 km west of the centre, a 240 m walk through chambers of stalactites and stalagmites lit in coloured light, with formations named Crystal Palace, Fish Tail Peak and Dragon Pagoda. The walls carry more than 70 ink inscriptions of poems and travel notes, the oldest dated to 792 AD in the Tang dynasty, and the name comes from the reeds outside, which were made into flutes. Open 08:00 to 17:30, ¥90, bus 3. The lighting is theatrical; whether that is the point or the problem is a matter of taste.

The Li River cruise to Yangshuo

The main event. The river falls from 141 m at Guilin to 103 m at Yangshuo, and the view on the fifth-series ¥20 note is a real bank of the river just outside Xingping, roughly halfway along. Boats run daily and any hotel in Guilin will book them. The three-star boats leave from Zhujiang Pier and take 3½ to 4 hours to Longtoushan Pier at West Street in Yangshuo, about ¥300 with lunch; the four-star boats (¥600 and up) mostly end at Xingping after about 3 hours, and some four-star sailings return from Xingping to Zhujiang in the afternoon if you want to sleep in Guilin. Xingping is about 35 minutes from Yangshuo by road.

Longji rice terraces

The Longsheng terraces, about 100 km north of Guilin, were mostly built about 650 years ago and climb the hillsides between 600 and 800 m. There are two main areas: Ping’an, a Zhuang village, and Jinkeng around Dazhai, a Yao area with smaller hamlets such as Tiantou. The paddies are flooded from early June, which is the mirror-terrace photograph everyone wants; summer is green shoots, autumn is the harvest and winter can bring frost.

Getting there independently: a direct bus leaves the forecourt of Guilin railway station at 08:30 and 14:00 for ¥40, about two hours of twisting mountain road to Longsheng town, then another hour or so by local bus up to the terraces. Entrance is ¥80 (¥40 for students); an organised day tour from Guilin with transfer, ticket and guide runs about ¥180, and a private shuttle about ¥350. With a full day you can hike between Ping’an and Dazhai in about 3 hours, or take the gondola up from Dazhai and walk down. The Yao women of the area are known for never cutting their hair; looking is free, a photograph is ¥10.

Daxu and the Lingqu canal

Daxu old town, 23 km southeast and half an hour by bus, has a 2 km Bluestone Street of old riverside houses, temples and the Longevity Bridge, with a fraction of the crowds downstream. In Xing’an county to the north, the Lingqu canal was ordered by Qin Shi Huang in 214 BC to join the Xiang River (flowing north to the Yangtze) with the Li (flowing south); at 36.4 km it is the oldest contour canal in the world and sits on UNESCO’s tentative list.

Food & drink

Guilin rice noodles (Guilin mifen) are breakfast, and have been the local staple since the Qin dynasty according to a legend in which an army cook devised them for northern soldiers whose stomachs could not handle southern food. The local speciality is the version topped with horse meat, which you can also order without. The way to eat them is not as a soup: the noodles and toppings come first and are eaten more or less dry, and the broth is added afterwards from a pot on the counter. Portions come in small, medium and large, the shops are everywhere, and the one piece of local advice worth repeating is to avoid the ones clustered around the railway station.

The noodles are one of the “three treasures” of Guilin; the other two are the chilli sauce and the pickled (fermented) tofu, along with Sanhua rice liquor, which turns up as a cooking ingredient as often as a drink. The fermented beancurd has been made here for more than 300 years, and the chilli paste combines chilli, garlic and Sanhua wine.

Beyond noodles, the dishes to look for are Daxu clear-water fish cooked with salt and ginger, old duck stewed with ginkgo nuts, river snails with sour peppers, shallots, ginger and Sanhua wine, and horse hoof cake (matigao), a crumbly cake stuffed with red bean that has nothing to do with horses. The local drinks are Liquan beer and osmanthus tea, the flower the city is named for.

For where to eat: Binjiang Lu along the river, Guilinren Wangjiao Food Street on Zhongshan Zhonglu (buses 11, 18 and 100), and the streets around Ximen Bridge, which is the Muslim quarter and the place for halal food, including the Islam Restaurant at 55 Xicheng Lu. Jufulin at 10 Zhengyang Lu is a long-running local restaurant on the pedestrian street, and Rosemary Cafe at 1 Yiren Lu does Western food for anyone who has hit their noodle limit. Guangxi cooking generally leans on freshwater fish, snails and sour pickles rather than the numbing heat of Sichuan next door, so if you have come from Chengdu expect a gentler table.

Nightlife

The evening in Guilin is a walk. Once the Sun and Moon Pagodas are lit, the loop around Shan and Rong lakes fills with families, tour groups and couples, and the illuminated pagodas are the best thing to look at in the city after dark. Cross to the east bank afterwards for the view back over the water.

Bars sit in three clusters. Binjiang Lu, near the Sheraton, has 100 C and the West Bank Café on the fourth floor of the Binjiang Building at number 18, which does jazz and river views. Chuanshan Nan Lu, across the Chuanshan Bridge, has a row of small bars (Red Lips, On the Road, Usual Place, Go In) that suit a late drink more than an early one. Logo, at 1-8 Chaoyang Lu, is the club option, open 19:00 to 03:00 with cover bands and DJs.

For something quieter, the Lakeside Inn in the Shan Lake Building on Shanhu Bei Lu pours German beer with English-speaking staff, and Kaya, a cafe-bar at 6 Zhonghua Lu near Solitary Beauty Peak, is the laid-back student end of the scene. The bigger backpacker bar street is in Yangshuo, and most people heading down the river save their late nights for there.

When to go

Guilin has a humid subtropical climate: a mean of 8.4°C in January, 28.4°C in July and August, and just under 1,890 mm of rain a year, about half of it falling from April to June in the plum-rain season. Plan around the rain more than the temperature.

October and November

The best window. October averages 21.5°C with only 54.9 mm of rain, November 16.2°C, and the haze that hides the hills in summer has usually cleared. The osmanthus trees flower in autumn, which is when the city smells the way its name promises. Avoid the first week of October: the National Day holiday starts around 1 October and can run to eight days, and it is the most crowded week of the Chinese year everywhere. Book the boat and the room well ahead if you must come then; otherwise aim for the second half of October.

March to May

Spring is green and wet. March averages 13.9°C, April 19.6°C and May 23.7°C, but rainfall climbs from 153 mm in March to 321 mm in May and the river runs high. Full water is good for the cruise and bad for visibility; expect mist around the peaks and pack a proper rain jacket rather than an umbrella. The Labour Day holiday from 1 May is the second crowd spike to plan around.

June to September

June is the wettest month at 448.7 mm, and July and August the hottest, with daily highs around 33°C; oddly, August is also the sunniest month, with 197.2 hours of sunshine. The spring rains carry a flood risk, and heavy rain can suspend the larger boats for a day or two. Prices are lower outside the school-holiday weeks and the hills are at their greenest; September (26°C, 80.9 mm) is the quiet lead-in to the good season.

December to February

Cool, grey and cheap. December averages 10.8°C and February 10.6°C, with February the dullest month of the year at 52.2 hours of sunshine; the record low is minus 4.9°C, so frost is possible but snow is not something to expect. The river runs low after the dry autumn, the karst is still there and the crowds are not, except for Chinese New Year in January or February, when domestic travel spikes for about a week. Rooms in older guesthouses may be unheated; pack layers.

Getting there

By air

Guilin Liangjiang International Airport (KWL) is about 28 km southwest of the centre; it opened on 1 October 1996 and gained Terminal 2, built for 12 million passengers a year, on 30 September 2018. It handled 6.5 million passengers in 2025, which made it the 48th busiest in China, and the carriers are the domestic majors (Air China, China Southern, China Eastern) plus the local Air Guilin; the international network is thin, with AirAsia’s Kuala Lumpur route the main foreign link at last check, so most overseas visitors connect through Guangzhou, Shanghai or Hong Kong.

Eight airport bus lines run from the terminal, ¥20 to ¥120 depending on destination; the ¥20 city line drops you just south of the centre, and Line 7 goes straight to Yangshuo for ¥50 in about 90 minutes. A taxi to the centre is about ¥100.

By train

Guilin has three stations, and which one your train uses matters. Guilin station, on Zhongshan Nanlu, is the central one and takes most terminating trains; Guilin North is a long way out; Guilin West is further still. Guilin North was rebuilt with 9 platforms and 18 tracks and reopened on 10 December 2014 as the high-speed hub, on the Hengyang to Liuzhou intercity line and a branch of the Guiyang to Guangzhou high-speed railway. High-speed services reach Changsha, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai; Shenzhen is about three hours, Nanning under three, Chengdu around seven. Booking works as everywhere in China (see the China guide); check the arrival station before you accept a ticket.

If you are continuing by rail rather than boat, note that Yangshuo railway station is actually in Xingping, about 36 km from Yangshuo town, with a shuttle bus into town.

By bus

For Yangshuo without the boat, private minibuses leave the square in front of Guilin railway station when full, ¥18 for 80 to 90 minutes, and government express buses run every twenty minutes from the main bus terminal, ¥22 for about 1½ hours. For Vietnam, there is an overnight sleeper bus to Hanoi (¥390, leaving in the evening), or the cleaner option of a 2½-hour high-speed train to Nanning and a morning bus from there. Chengyang and the Dong minority country are a 30-minute high-speed hop to Sanjiang.

Getting around

The centre is a walk. Zhengyang Lu, the lakes, the river bank, Elephant Trunk Hill and the princely city all sit within about half an hour of each other on foot, and the lake loop is better walked than ridden.

City buses are capped at ¥2 a trip, and every route whose number starts with 5 is free. Pay with coins, a transit card or the Alipay and WeChat transit codes that work across China. The bus numbers for individual sights are given with each entry above.

Taxis are cheap but hard to flag between 17:30 and 19:00, the evening peak. Ride-hailing through Didi works as in any Chinese city and removes the negotiation.

Bicycles suit the lakes and the riverbank: shops in the centre hire mountain bikes for ¥45 to ¥100 a day. The main avenues are heavy with traffic; keep to the water.

For the Li River boats, the pier is out of town and the transfer is normally sold with the ticket; ask when you book rather than trying to reach Zhujiang Pier on your own.

Where to stay

Guilin has more than 30 five-star hotels, 100 four-star and 200 three-star, plus a spread of B&Bs on the hilltops and in the countryside, so beds are not the problem; the decision is which side of the centre.

River and lake views

The international-grade addresses sit on the water. The Shangri-La is at 111 Huancheng Bei Er Lu; the Lijiang Waterfall Hotel, 646 rooms with a pool, at 1 Shanhu Bei Lu on the lake; the Sheraton two minutes from the pedestrian street; and the Eva Inn at 66 Binjiang Lu has rooms looking over the Li River to Elephant Trunk Hill. Rates on Trip.com and Booking.com swing with the holidays described under when to go; outside those weeks they are moderate for a city this size.

Mid-range near the lakes

The Guilin Bravo Hotel at 14 Ronghu Nan Lu faces Rong Lake, with rates from ¥622 on its own site at last listing, and Soluxe Qixia is three minutes from the river. The Osmanthus Flower Hotel at 10 Zhongshan Bei Lu is the cheaper end of this bracket, with standard rooms around ¥150.

Hostels

Guilin Central Hostel at 3 Renmin Lu (dorms from ¥35, doubles ¥120 to ¥140), Wada Hostel at 212 Huancheng Xiyi Lu (dorms ¥40, private rooms ¥140 to ¥150, with a bar doing ¥20 to ¥30 cocktails), and Ming Palace Hostel at 10-3 Donghua Lu are the long-running backpacker options, all with English-speaking staff and desks that sell the boat and the terraces trips. Those prices are Wikivoyage’s last listed figures and will have crept up.

Whichever you choose, book the holiday weeks early; the rest of the year a day or two ahead is fine, and hostels usually have walk-in beds.

Practical info

Visas, money apps, plugs and the general shape of Chinese travel are covered in the China guide; the usual Western sites and messaging apps are blocked, so sort out a VPN before you land. What follows is specific to Guilin.

Information

The city tourism office runs visitguilin.org in English, and the Guilin Tourism Bureau answers on +86 773 282 5890; the Public Security Bureau is on +86 773 282 3334 for lost passports and visa questions. The airport information line is 0773 284 5359.

Safety

Guilin is safe by Chinese and international standards, with one exception: pickpocketing, and the bus station is the worst spot in the city, worked by organised groups. Keep your wallet in a front pocket or a money belt there and on crowded pavements at night.

Scams

Two to know. Strangers introducing themselves as students or teachers who want to practise English and then steer you to a tea house or a gallery where you pay for their tea or their “art”; and, on the road trips out of town, highway rest stops selling fake honey. Touts around the station and the piers sell the same boats and terraces trips as your hotel, at the same price or worse; book through the hotel desk.

Money for sights

Guilin has had a tourism economy longer than almost any other Chinese city, and it shows in the ticketing: nearly every hill, cave and boat charges separately and the listed prices go up most years. Carry the payment app with a topped-up balance, since ticket offices and the small noodle counters alike would rather scan a code than make change.