Excerpt from the website of China World Heritage, May 2001 In 1996 December, The Son of God Mountain was honored as "World Natural Heritage" by the UN Organization of Science, Education and Culture.
Wulingyuan tourist site is situated in the northwest of Hunan province; it features geologic structure of outstanding value, beautiful physical contours, complete ecosystem, rare cultural relics and various climate and scenes; the UN Organization of Science, Education and Culture listed collected it into "Directory of World Heritage" in 1992 December.
The charm of Wulingyuan could be summarized as following, strange, proud, delicate, calm and bold. Wulingyuan has many huge rocks with strange appearance, some of them are very dangerous and steepy: they gather together, just like many coral come out from the deep blue sea; Wulingshan also boasts its great variety of plants, most of them can leave a deep impression onto the mind of guests with their bizarre looks; here is also the home of brooks, springs, lakes and waterfalls, with the shadow of clouds and fog, the entire scene looks mysterious and vague; the water-eroded caves here are another particularity.
There are all together 3103 hoodoos, and this is quite unique in the world hoodoo family. The waterscape here is famed as "Water Eight Hundred", it will always remain the same even in time of drought. The biological reserves in Wulingyuan feature a vegetation of clear vertical pattern, a complete architecture of plant community, a well-balanced ecosystem; it accumulates many old and rare plants and the particular plant resource in China. 35 kinds of valuable plants here were among the first to be listed in the "Directory of Rare Plants in Severe Danger in China".
There are quite some scenic spots in Wulingyuan occupying 390.8 km2, and area opened primarily to the visitors is 264 km2. The natural scenes here are splendid, gorgeous, they are full of changes; it is the wild animals that add a crucial touch to the credit of the place; climatic comfort is an extra advantage bestowed to the sites as well as the travelers; the tourist site is famed as "the world of science, the world of art, the world of fairy tales and the world of mysteries.