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Home → China Travel Guide → Qinghai Travel Guide → Chaka Salt Lake

Chaka Salt Lake

Not far beyond Qinghai Lake, Chaka Salt Lake is located near Chaka Town, Wulan County, Qinghai, in the eastern part of the Caidamu Basin. The lake's breadth is 9.2 kilometers and the length is 15 kilometers, with a total area of 105 square kilometers.

Chaka salt lake was famous for its salt in ancient times. At that time almost everyone in the northwest and central plains of China knew of Qinghai salt. Li Shi-zhen, the famous doctor on iatrology and pharmacology of the Ming Dynasty, in his book “Compendium of Materia Medica”, not only described the form of Qinghai salt precisely but also its functions for medical care in detail. It was also written in the Han Dynasty's Chronicles, Geography Records that Qinghai salt in the Western Han Dynasty was sold to Shaanxi, Shanxi, Gansu, and other areas two thousand years ago.

The scenery of Chaka Salt Lake is so beautiful that it was awarded as an important scenic spot by the Qinghai People's Government in the early 1980s. Chaka Salt Lake is not only famous for producing Qinghai salt, but also for the unique landscapes in the area. Millions of tourists from all over the world travel there every year. You might have seen the sunrise on the sea or on the Taishan Mountain or the Emei Mountain, but it is the sunrise on the salt lake that is the most marvelous and that you will never forget.

At Chaka Salt Lake, you can ride a small freight train, visit a house of salt, walk on a sixty-kilometre salt bridge – and take a hunk of the stuff home with you afterwards.

To visit the lake independently, get on a bus heading to Dulan or Wulan from the long-distance bus station and get off at the small town of Chaka Zhen, near the lake – the earliest bus leaves at 8am. Accommodation is available at the only hotel in town, the Yanhu Binguan. The best time to visit Chaka Salt Lake is in July.

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