This is a place of extraordinary natural and cultural beauty, with authentic ethnic culture, particularly of the Bai minority ethnicity of China.

The ancient city of Dali was the capital of the Kingdom of Dali, which found its prosperity in the fertile land between Cangshan Mountain and Erhai Lake. The Mountain and Lake shaped the culture of the Bai people as well as the Dali Empire.

As the capital of an once prosperous kingdom, it has a number of imperial sites. With Buddhism as its state religion, the Dali Kingdom left many religious sites with imperial colours. The Chongsheng Temple located at the foot of Cangshan saw 11 Dali Emperors abdicating to become a monk there. Thus the grandeur of the Temple has few comparable counterparts in the entire China. The three pagodas in the Temple compound is a symbol and icon of Dali, the Bai people and, to a large extent, the entire Yunnan province, of which Dali is a part.

Cangshan, especially its snow-capped ridge, is a famous landscape of Dali. The moon over Erhai Lake is also a specialty of the scenery here, both part of the four classical sceneries of Dali, attracting many tourists, domestic and foreign. Thus Cangshan and Erhai have played an important role in the economic development of the Bai people, from agriculture in the past to tourism in modern days.