Qualla: Heshigten Global Geopark

Heshigten Global Geopark: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Mongolian word for the granite pillars at Arshihaty translates simply as 'steep peaks,' but the Chinese have given the five scenic areas within the stone forest far more evocative names: Moon Castle, Sworn Brothers, Eagle with Folded Wings, Fortress Besieged, and Live Folk Entertainment. These are granite columns sculpted by ice and wind into forms that humans cannot help but see as architecture and drama -- because the forces that shaped them operated on the same principles of pressure, fracture, and erosion that drive every story worth telling.

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Heshigten Global Geopark: Where Mountains Meet Sand

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Heshigten Global Geopark sprawls across 1,750 square kilometers of Inner Mongolia's Hexigten Banner, about 400 kilometers north of Beijing and 210 kilometers northwest of Chifeng City. It sits at a geological crossroads where the Greater Khingan Mountains meet the Yan Mountains a...

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Heshigten Global Geopark: Stone Forests and Giant Kettles

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Arshihaty granite forest in the park's northern reaches is its most dramatic feature. Frost splitting, freeze-thaw cycles, and wind erosion have carved granite bedrock into towering columns with a distinctive horizontal segmentation -- layers visible in the stone like pages i...

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Heshigten Global Geopark: Fire, Ice, and Vanishing Lakes

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Dali Nur lake anchors the park's western section, its shores ringed by volcanic features. The Dali Nur volcanic group includes a basalt plateau and the remnant plugs of extinct volcanoes that once formed islands when the lake was larger. As water levels dropped, these plugs becam...

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Heshigten Global Geopark: The Canyon and the Advancing Sand

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Xar Moron River -- the Xilamulun in Chinese -- flows northeast through Hexigten Banner, passing through the territory where the Khitan people originated before founding the Liao dynasty in the 10th century. In the park's southwestern corner, the river has carved a deep canyon...

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