The Kanas Lake National Geopark, a famous natural resort in the Aletai region of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is expected to replace the Yellowstone National Park in the United States as the world's biggest geopark.

 

 

Covering an area of 2,000 square kilometers, the park has China's deepest alpine lake—the Kanas Lake. The legendary "lake monsters" add a further air to the lake.

 

Inside the park there are also jokuls (snow- or ice-capped mountains), grassland and vast natural poplar-birch forests, attracting millions of tourists, from China and abroad, to visit the marvelous and picturesque scenery there.

 

To further tap the tourism resources within the region, local authority plans to invest 8 million yuan in absorbing neighboring tourist resorts into the Kanas natural resort, and expanding the park to cover an area of 10,030 square kilometers.

 

In 2006, Aletai invested 385 million yuan in building up airports, and strengthening tourist resort construction. With all these efforts, the region has received 763,000 tourists, with tourist revenue of 560 million yuan.

 

(CRI.cn May 10, 2007)