TORONTO, April 24, 2026 – Under the sunlight, the lake shimmers with layered shades of pale blue and emerald green, while wetlands, boardwalks, villages, and farmland unfold one after another along the shore. Located in Chengjiang, Yuxi, Yunnan, Fuxian Lake is an important lake in the Nanpan River system of the Pearl River Basin. It is also one of China’s best-quality inland freshwater lakes and one of the country’s largest deep, oligotrophic freshwater lakes by water storage. Its shoreline stretches about 100.8 kilometres, with an average depth of 95.2 metres and a maximum depth of 158.9 metres. Its overall water quality has long remained excellent, making it one of the most representative ecological landmarks among Yunnan’s plateau lakes.
Fuxian Lake is notable not only for its clarity. In terms of watershed scale, water storage, and ecological function, the lake also carries strong regional significance. Available information shows that Fuxian Lake’s maximum storage capacity reaches 20.62 billion cubic metres, accounting for 68.3 percent of the total storage capacity of Yunnan’s key plateau lakes. Around the lake, inflowing waterways, wetlands, and water regulation zones together form an ecological barrier, while also providing the foundation for the development of tourism, wellness, and long-stay residential industries.
What has grown around this deep-water lake is not only natural scenery, but also an expanding cultural and tourism space. Fuxian Lake National Tourism Resort was officially designated a national tourism resort in 2019, becoming Yuxi’s first national-level tourism resort. In recent years, as wetland parks, boardwalks, town markets, museums, guesthouse villages, and nighttime consumption spaces have gradually improved, the area has shifted from a single sightseeing destination to a lake-based tourism destination that combines leisure vacations, wellness and sports, conferences and exhibitions, and cultural experiences.
On the northern shore of Fuxian Lake, Mafang Village, located not far from the water, makes another side of the lake more concrete. The village is in Yousuo Town, Chengjiang City, at an elevation of 1,740 metres, with an average annual temperature of 17.4 degrees Celsius. It is about 200 metres from Fuxian Lake, about 4 kilometres from Chengjiang’s main urban area, about 66 kilometres from Kunming Changshui International Airport, and about 39 kilometres from Kunming South Railway Station. For long-stay visitors, this location means it retains the slow pace of a lakeside village without being completely cut off from urban transportation and daily amenities.
Unlike many villages that attract visitors only through scenery, Mafang Village’s recent transformation is more clearly reflected in the combination of “ecology + culture + long-stay living.” Since 2014, the local area has continuously promoted ecological restoration and improvements to the living environment, building wetlands and ecological water regulation zones while also upgrading rain and sewage separation systems, burying utility lines underground, and improving the village landscape. Today, yellow walls, dark-tiled roofs, stone-paved lanes, farmland, wetlands, and spaces such as parking areas are linked together, allowing ecological protection of the lake area and everyday village life to develop side by side.
The village name also carries historical traces. It is said that Mafang Village got its name from Liang Wang’s horse station here during the late Yuan Dynasty. Military settlement culture, horse culture, fishing culture, and farming culture have all left marks on the village. In recent years, these elements have been transformed into more tangible long-stay and travel experiences: murals, relief sculptures, intangible cultural heritage activities, local festivals, and distinctive food together shape the village’s everyday atmosphere. Regional dishes such as stone pot fish, Chengjiang braised pork trotters, and lotus-themed banquets, together with lakeside guesthouses, cafés, campsites, and wellness spaces, have made the village more than just a quick photo stop. It now feels closer to a place where people can truly stay for a while.
Available information shows that Mafang Village has now developed 37 distinctive guesthouses with more than 600 beds, offering a variety of accommodation types such as courtyard-style rooms, lotus-view rooms, and lake-view rooms, while also creating nearby employment and business opportunities for villagers. In 2025, Mafang Village was selected as one of the first pilot sites for the high-quality development of the “Living in Yunnan” initiative, and was featured as a model rural long-stay case in the “Living in Yunnan Pavilion” at the China-South Asia Expo. From a traditional lakeside village to a community that now combines ecological protection, cultural display, and long-stay capacity, Mafang Village’s transformation also offers a more concrete lens through which to observe cultural and tourism development around Fuxian Lake.
From the deep clear lake to the ancient village by the shore, what makes Fuxian Lake attractive is not only the scenery itself, but also the overall experience created by the gradual intertwining of lake ecology, village renewal, and a slower way of life. For tourists, it can be a short getaway. For those seeking a place to stay longer, Fuxian Lake and Mafang Village offer another vision of life, one that is close to nature and also close to everyday living. （End)
