Yangshuo is a very scenic, small county and city surrounded by many karst mountains and beautiful scenery near Guilin, Guangxi. It is very popular among tourists. Yangshuo is popular for its incredible karst scenery, beautiful mountains, rivers, caves, and temples as well as its laid back cafes and bars. The area around Yangshuo is renowned throughout China, if not the whole world, (even making it into the backdrop of Star Wars Episode III), for its karst landscape where there are hundreds upon hundreds of limestone hills dotting the countryside. The beautiful scenery here is a common subject of Chinese paintings as well as the inspiration for poetry. There are several popular areas for karst landscape sight-seeing which can be covered by river cruises, bamboo-raft cruises, cycling, trekking and combinations of the various modes.

Xingping is a town within Guangxi Province, China. It is located approximately 27 kilometers upstream from Yangshuo on the Li River. Like Yangshuo, Xingping is surrounded by great examples of Karst scenery, with one particularly prominent peak overlooking the village from the southern end of the shoreline against the Yi River, which is topped with a lookout which can be climbed too with relative ease by those with an adventurous spirit and a head for heights.

The River Li originates in the Mao'er Mountains in Xing'an County and flows in the general southern direction through Guilin, Yangshuo and Pingle. The 437-kilometer course of the Li and Gui Rivers is flanked by green hills. Cormorant fishing is often associated with the Lijiang. Its unusual karst topography hillsides have often been compared to those at Halong Bay, Vietnam. Along the 100-kilometer stretch of the River Li, mountain peaks rise into the sky. It is one of China's most famous scenic areas, featured in many scroll paintings. The imagery of the River Li is featured on the fifth series of the 20 yuan note. The landscape on the 20 yuan bank note is just outside Xingping, You may think that the Chinese are looking for money from you when really they are pointing this out. You can take a photo from the exact same spot as this picture.