Location
Hejing, Bayingolin, Xinjiang
"Bayanbulak" means "rich springs" in Mongolian...
"Bayanbulak" means "rich springs" in Mongolian. It lies in the Yulduz Basin in the heart of the Tianshan range — China's second-largest grassland and its largest alpine wetland grassland. The Kaidu River draws nine bends and eighteen turns across it, and at sunset each bend holds a reflection of the sun: the spectacle of "nine suns" takes the breath away. Swan Lake National Nature Reserve is China's largest swan habitat.
The Kaidu River rushes down from the snow peaks of the Tianshan and wanders freely across the level basin. The viewpoint on Baxilike Hill is the famous sunset spot: on clear days from June to September, at the moment the sun sinks to the horizon, every turn of the river lights up at once, and as many as nine suns can be counted in reflection — a scene made famous nationwide by the film Pegasus.
Swan Lake at Bayanbulak is China's largest whooper swan breeding ground; each spring thousands of swans return from the south to raise their young alongside tundra and mute swans. The alpine wetland also shelters black storks, golden eagles and other first-class protected species. The reserve, established in 1980, was among China's earliest created for swans.
天马行空自西极，九曲落日百重光。 — Heavenly horses range free from the far west; nine bends at sunset blaze with a hundredfold light.—— Modern verse on Bayanbulak
In 1771 Ubashi, chief of the Torghut Mongols, led 170,000 of his people east from the Volga basin; after a journey of ten thousand li and terrible losses, they were finally settled in the Yulduz Basin — the Puhui Temple (the Yellow Temple at Baluntai) and the Eastward Return Museum commemorate this epic of human migration. The Torghuts' descendants still herd here today, and the "spirit of the eastward return" is the deepest historical ground tone of Bayanbulak.