The Chinese Park Famous For It’s Underground River

Natural beauty buried amongst China’s coal country

Grant Piper
3 min readOct 26, 2021
The entrance to the park’s expansive cave system (Wiki Commons / CC BY 3.0)

Benxi is a city in Liaoning, China with a split personality. On the one hand, Benxi is an important center for the Chinese coal industry. Air quality is often poor. The largest employer in the city is the Benxi Iron and Steel Company. On the other hand, it is a jumping off point to explore some of China’s best natural places and quiet mountains.

One such place is the Benxi Shuidong National Park which is famous for its large stalactite and stalagmite forests and a absolutely massive underground river. There are many large cavern systems in the world that draw in tourists but few have the impressive underground waterways that the Benxi caves boast.

A true subterranean river

Shot of the underground river. (Trip Advisor)

There are many underground rivers but most of them fill caves entirely. This means they are only traversable by highly trained divers and their beauty and mystery are shrouded in complete blackness. The river at Benxi Shuidong National Park is different in that the surface is exposed to open air but it is still within the cave system.

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Grant Piper

Professional writer. Amateur historian. Husband, father, Christian.