Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, which was referred to as Mengle, boasts a long-standing history.
Xishuangbanna was the transliteration of its Dai-language name, in which “xishuang” stands for “twelve” and “banna” means “thousand land patches”. When put together, the word means “twelve administrative areas for paying tribute to the imperial court.” In 1579 A.D., the Dai governor Dao Ying Meng divided his manor into 12 administrative areas to facilitate tribute payment to the Emperor, and hence the name of the Prefecture.
Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture was founded on January 23, 1953. The gross area of the Prefecture is 19,125 km2, and under the jurisdiction of the Prefecture are Menghai and Mengla Counties. Within the Prefecture are 10 county-level, state-owned farms and 6 national- or provincial-level research institutes. Population of the Prefecture has amounted to 880,000. The Prefectural capital Jinghong is the political, economic and cultural center of the entire Prefecture.
Located at the northern edge of the tropical zone in the south of the Tropic of Cancer, Xishuangbanna shows features of both the continental and oceanic climatic zones. Annual rainfall of the Prefecture is 1,190 – 2,500 mm, and its annual mean temperature, 18.6 – 21.9 °C.
The adequate sunshine hours, plentiful rainfall and almost-constant temperature make Xishuangbanna a natural resort for evading the freezing winter cold.
The unique geographical location and climatic conditions have jointly nurtured rich biological resources and bio-diversification of the region. Xishuangbanna is not only China’s treasure house of well-preserved tropical ecosystem and extremely plentiful tropical bio-resources, but also the world’s only oasis in the “desert belt” to the north of the Tropic of Cancer. Within the Prefecture are 17 million mu of forested lands, and the forest cover has reached 67%. To date, China has set up Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve and the National Reserve of the Nanban River region in the Prefecture, and the gross area of the 2 nature reserves have added up to 4.02 million mu.
This oasis is the home of over 5,000 flora species which account for 1/5 of the national total. Plants of the Prefecture, which originated in different geological periods and belong to dissimilar plant zones, have jointly formed the unique tropical plant communities of Xishuangbanna and extremely colorful natural wonders. More over, Xishuangbanna is also the home of the most beautiful tropical rainforests of China.
The thick forests in Xishuangbanna have provided safe and cozy habitats as well as plentiful food to all kinds of wildlife. Thanks to its greatest number of precious and rare animals in China, Xishuangbanna is praised as the “kingdom of wild animals.”
The dense forests of Xishuangbanna are home of over 540 kinds of continental vertebrates such as the Asian elephants, bison and peacocks and over 430 kinds of birds, making the Prefecture China’s only place that boasts the greatest number of precious and rare animals. Walking into the dense forests, visitors would see wild elephants roaming, monkeys frolicking, and peacocks spreading their tails …
Praised as the rarely-found “kingdom of animals”, “kingdom of plants” and “gene bank of species” of the world, Xishuangbanna has not only been listed as the national-level ecological demonstration area, but also a member of the international biosphere conservation network.
