Discover Lijiang
Black Dragon Pool and Jade Spring Park
黑龙潭公园（玉泉公园）
A spring-fed pool at the north edge of the old town whose Deyue Pavilion and arched bridge frame the most reproduced view in Yunnan: temple roofs with Jade Dragon Snow Mountain reflected behind them. It is also where Lijiang locals do tai chi and sing at dawn.
The story
What makes this place special
Jade Spring Park (Yuquan Gongyuan), known to almost everyone as Black Dragon Pool, is the spring at the north edge of the old town that feeds the three water channels running through Dayan's streets. The pool and its temple buildings were developed from the Qing dynasty onward, and several of the halls standing in the park today were moved here from other Lijiang temples during the twentieth century to save them. The spring has run dry in some years as Lijiang's water table has dropped under tourism and climate pressure, and the pool has at times been topped up artificially.
What you’ll discover
A flat lakeside park with a five-arch marble bridge and a small pavilion in the water, positioned so that Jade Dragon Snow Mountain appears behind it and reflects in the pool. That one view is why people come. Beyond it, paths lead round the water to the Deyue Pavilion, a relocated Ming-era hall known as the Five Phoenix Hall, a Dongba culture museum and a stele garden, all set among willows and plum trees.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- The reflection only works on a still, clear morning with the mountain unclouded, and only if the pool is full. If the mountain is in cloud there is no point paying a separate attraction fee for the day; come back the next morning instead.
- Entry to the park is covered by the old-town maintenance fee rather than a separate ticket, and the check happens at the gate. Bring the receipt or you will be sent to buy one.
- This is the place to start a walk down into Dayan rather than to end one. It sits at the top of the slope, so you go downhill into the old town and avoid the climb back.
- The relocated halls at the back of the park get almost no visitors and hold better carpentry than anything in the old town's commercial lanes. Allow twenty minutes past the famous bridge.
- The adjacent Dongba museum of Naxi pictographic script is small but is the clearest explanation in Lijiang of what the Dongba manuscripts actually are, and is worth more than the folklore shows in town.
When to come
Just after opening, for still water and the mountain before cloud builds. October to April gives the clearest mountain views; summer afternoons usually lose the peak to cloud.
Getting around
Among the easiest sites in Lijiang. The main lakeside loop is paved, broadly level and wheelchair-feasible, with the bridge being the only short rise. The hillside paths towards the back temples have steps and slopes. A bad knee can do the whole core circuit comfortably.
Worth knowing before you go
The mountain reflection only appears on a clear, windless morning, and the pool has run dry in some dry-season years. Arrive before 09:00 for both the water and the light.
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