Discover Kunming
Green Lake Park
翠湖公园
Kunming's social living room: a lake of lotus ponds and willow causeways in the middle of the city, ringed by old campuses and cafes. From roughly November to March tens of thousands of Siberian black-headed gulls overwinter here and locals feed them from the bridges.
The story
What makes this place special
Cuihu, Green Lake, is a city park in central Kunming immediately below the main gate of Yunnan University, made up of four connected small lakes linked by traditional-style bridges and causeways. Its modern fame rests on the gulls: black-headed, red-billed gulls arrived in Kunming in large numbers for the first time in the winter of 1985, and have returned every winter since. On 12 December 1985 the Kunming municipal government, advised by researchers including the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Kunming Institute of Zoology, issued a public notice on protecting them. In the first years roughly 5,000 to 9,000 birds came into the city, concentrating on Dianchi, the Panlong River, Cuihu and Daguanlou. In January 1986 a Yunnan University research team ringed 16 gulls at Cuihu, beginning the long-running banding study. A retired worker, Wu Qingheng, became locally famous for spending half his pension feeding them.
What you’ll discover
In winter, tens of thousands of gulls on and above the water, so dense along the causeways that they take bread from your hand in mid-air, with crowds of Kunming families throwing feed. The park itself is willows, lotus beds, stone bridges, pavilions on islets and a bamboo grove, with tai chi, chess and impromptu singing groups in the mornings. Out of gull season it is a quiet, well-used urban park with a good teahouse or two.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- The gulls are the point and they are seasonal: roughly late November to March, with the peak in December and January. Outside that window Cuihu is pleasant but ordinary.
- Buy gull feed from the official stalls rather than bringing bread. Feeding is managed, and bread is bad for the birds; the park sells proper pellets cheaply.
- Early morning is when both the birds and the local life are at their best, before the tour groups reach the causeways. By mid-morning the central bridges are shoulder to shoulder.
- It is free and it adjoins the old campus of Yunnan University, whose 1920s buildings and the Nine Dragon Pool area behind are worth the extra twenty minutes. Walk up through the campus gate rather than doubling back.
- Combine it on foot with Yuantong Temple, which is about ten minutes north, and the Military Academy building on the park's west side. All three are in one flat walk.
When to come
December to February, early morning, for the gulls at their densest and the park at its most local. Summer gives lotus flowers but no birds.
Getting around
One of the easiest sights in Kunming. The park is flat, the causeways and lakeside paths are paved and wide, and a wheelchair can do the full circuit with only the arched bridges as obstacles, most of which have a gentler route around. Benches and toilets throughout. A bad knee is no obstacle at all.
Worth knowing before you go
Come early morning for the dancing and singing groups, or between November and March for the gulls — outside the gull season it is a pleasant park rather than a sight. Gull food is sold by vendors around the lake.
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