Liangshan Prefecture has wide area and complicated geological construction, and belongs to the geological construction belt of “Western Panzhihua Giant Rift Valley” and “Kangding & Yunnan Axis”. Its landform is mainly in hill, with a proportion of beyond 80%, then comes plateau, and mound, flood plain, strath and sunk basin are in a proportion of around 10%. Its landscape is featured with being high in northwest and low in southeast, with high elevation. The prefecture has 7 mountains each at beyond 5,000 m elevation, mainly located in Muli County. The prefecture belongs to the medium and high mountainous region of eastern Hengduan Mountain, with an average elevation of beyond 2,500 m, including Fuerduoji Peak in 5,958 m.
Liangshan Prefecture has well-developed water system and a lot of rivers, belonging to Yangtze Valley, including Jinsha River, Yalong River and Dadu River running through the prefecture as the three major local water systems.
Liangshan is a residential region of several nationalities and the largest habitation of Yi Nationality of China, with 25 nationalities including Yi, Tibetan, Lili, Buyi, Naxi (Mosuo at the side of Lugu Lake is one branch of Naxi), Hui, Miao, Mongolia and Han.
Because of its characteristics of long history and multiple-nationality habitation, Liangshan Prefecture has unique tradition and style of minority nationality culture. There is not only the reserve of large amount of information about ancient culture, but also abundant cultures of region, Bimo, costume, fire, wine and singing & dance.
Liangshan Prefecture has 4 advantages in resources: First, the exceptionally gifted agricultural resource. Anning River Valley has sufficient sunshine, abundant rainfall, low annual temperature difference, high daily temperature difference, fruitful light, heat, water and soil resources, and high-output and superior-quality crops. Secondly, the hydroelectricity resource ranking No.1 of the world. In the 14 large hydroelectricity stations of beyond 1 million KW planned by the central government on “the three rivers” (Jinsha River, Yalong River and Dadu River), 9 stations are located in Liangshan. Thirdly, abundant reserve of mineral resources. There is large reserve of rare earth, mine, copper, lead, zinc and stannum with high quality, easy exploration and high-value comprehensive usage. Its reserve of 22 minerals including rich-iron ore, copper, zinc, stannum, cobalt, molybdenum, silver and phosphor ranks the first in Sichuan Province; its reserve of rare earth in beyond 2 million tons represents the second ore bed of rare earth in China. Fourthly, the beautiful and fascinating tourism resources.
The tourism resources of Liangshan Prefecture is classified into 4 types: First, the natural scenes of lake, landscape (glacier), waterfall, immense forestry and limestone cave; secondly, the modern science and technology scenes of the worldly renowned satellite launching center; thirdly, the historic and cultural scenes; fourthly, the featured minority-nationality scenes.
Xichang, the capital of Liangshan Prefecture is located at the bank of Qionghai Lake and Anning River, with low latitude, high elevation, little fog, low pollution, few suspensions in air and high air transparency, so that it has radiant and bright moon in night, and thus is reputed as “moon city” and “smaller spring city”. Xichang is not only the political, economic and cultural center of Liangshan Prefecture, but also is the material distribution center at the conjuncture of Sichuan and Yunnan, and the junction and intermediate station connecting with the tourist resorts including Chengdu, Leshan, E’mei and Kunming. It is an opening city approved by the State Council, a national experimental area of reform and opening in minority region, a national model city of “supporting army and government” and a central city in the program of “Western Panzhihua Comprehensive Resource Exploration Region” in Sichuan Province.