Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan

The Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas form a serial natural property of great size: 1.7 million hectares spread across 25 components corresponding to 15 protected areas grouped into eight clusters. It was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2003, at the Committee's 27th session, under all four natural criteria, something very few properties in the world achieve. In 2010 a minor modification of its boundaries was approved, these having been the subject of discussion since inscription.

Its name describes the geographical phenomenon that defines it: in north-western Yunnan, on the eastern edge of the Himalaya, three of Asia's great rivers — the Jinsha, which later becomes the Yangtze; the Lancang, which becomes the Mekong; and the Nu, which downstream is the Salween — run parallel from north to south for more than 300 kilometres, separated by mountain chains and set in gorges thousands of metres deep, without ever meeting. It is the result of the collision of the Indian plate with the Eurasian and of the uplift of Tibet, and constitutes one of the best places on the planet to observe the recent geological history of the Earth's crust.

That extreme relief, with differences in height running from 700 to more than 6,000 metres, compresses into very little horizontal distance almost every environment of the temperate northern hemisphere, from the subtropical forest of the valley floors to the glaciers. The result is the most biodiverse enclave in China and one of the richest in the temperate world: it holds a very high share of the country's animal and plant species, including the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey, the snow leopard, the red panda and the takin, and it is a world centre of diversity for rhododendrons and primulas. It is also a territory of notable cultural diversity, with more than a dozen ethnic groups.