The coloured hills of Zhangye
Our Landy had to stay outside. So did the idea of heading off for a hike.
Visiting the Rainbow Mountains of Zhangye meant following the organised tourist route, which felt a little restrictive for us. We usually like having the freedom to explore, take a different path or drive a little further to see what’s around the next corner. Here, we joined the other visitors and looked at the landscape from the designated viewing areas.
An ordinary tourist visit, then. With some fairly extraordinary views.
We had good weather, and those colours were crazy. Red and yellow bands following every fold in the mountains and some weird shapes. Rounded hills overlapping each other, narrow ridges, little gullies cutting through the stripes. We would have loved to walk further into that landscape or better camp here. But even from the viewpoints, it was breathtaking.
The visit follows an organised route, with buses connecting the viewing areas and paths and steps leading to the platforms. Our Landy had to stay outside. We hadn’t realised how restricted exploring would be and would have loved a little more freedom to walk around.
We’ve come across this setup at quite a few sights in China. With so many visitors, we can understand why there are rules. We’ve also seen people ignore signs and treat places with little care often enough to understand why those rules are enforced. Still, for us, following a set route takes a little of the fun out of exploring.
We would have loved to drive this stretch in the Landy, but this time we had to enjoy it from the bus.
At least the bus stops where beautiful.
What movie set up is this?
A quick note about UNESCO
Zhangye became a UNESCO Global Geopark in 2020. The Colorful Hills were also added to China’s World Heritage Tentative List in 2025. Of course it became a local tourist hot spot. The parking has a capacity of about 7,000 cars plus 1,800 larger vehicles.
Where do all the colours come from?
Much of Zhangye’s colour comes from iron oxide — basically the same process that creates rust. Other minerals add shades of brown, yellow and even green, while the different rock layers create the distinctive stripes across the hills.
Over millions of years, those layers were pushed, folded and tilted by geological forces. The collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, which also shaped the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, played a role in deforming the landscape far inland.
Count the layers!