It borders on Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan, at longitude 86`54"-87'54"east and latitude 48'75"-49'11"north,like a feather tail stuck up at the north-west corner of rooster shaped China's  domain

  The Kanas, located in the territory of Burqin County, central part of the Altay Mountains, is a state level natural reserve and the most distinctive natural landscape zone, with an area of 5,888 sq. kilometers.

  In terms lf science and humanity, the Kanas is China's only extension for the Siberian Taiga Forest, the only Palace arctic Euro-Siberian wildlife distribution region in China, the only place of the biggest tributary of the Ertix River in the river system of the Arctic Ocean, an important ecological area to check the northward movement of the Gurbantunggut Desert and also the only compact community for the Tuwa tribe, Mongolian nationality.

   The Kanas has a unique geographic position, favorable natural condition and strange biological composition. The region, as a rare typical area with European ecological system in China, shapes a lot of peculiar and splendid biological and a geographic phenomena, featured by undulating hills, continuous ice-capped peaks, criss-crossing ravines and gullies, dense forest and a great disparity in super elevation.

  The Kanas, in many people's mind, simply means the Kanas Lake, where above is the blue sky, dotted with elegant white cloud; below is a pool of green water, as limpid as a mirror; around are grand glaciers, pure white snow, lush forest, luxuriant pasture and gurgling streams, adding radiance and beauty to each other as if they were dissolved into one body. So one can't help feeling excited at such a marvelous sight.

  Mr.Qian Wei-chang, a famous Chinese scholar once spoke highly of the Kanas by saying, "Here is the only Swiss Landscape in Asia".

  The Kanas is situated in the cool temperature zone. The long winter season lasts seven months; spring and autumn link up without clear summer all the year round and frost-free period reaches 80-108 days. From early June to Mid-October each year, the climate here is pleasant; the moon is clear and the sun is sunny; the mean temperature is around16`C,with relative humidity of 63% even in the hottest month of July. Being located in the heartland of Euro-Asian continent, far from seas, with rich heat and light resources, the place is endowed with the climatic feature of warm spring, autumn and mild winter. The rainfall is ample, with an annual precipitation of1,000 mm or so as a result of the incessant invasion of the warm and humid air mass in the west air-current from the Atlantic Ocean. The moisture passage creates the moistest green land in Xinjiang, where the content of negative oxygen ion is very high and quite suitable for recuperation or vacation. It is both a summer resort and tourist scenic spot.

  The Kanas is located at the top part of the Altay Mountains, in which the massifs are huge and cuts are sharp. Quite a few parallel block mountains, in tramontane basins and valleys join here. There exists a great disparity in varied topography and landforms. The climate, soil and living things are vertically distributed in a sharp contour. It is the most complete vertical natural belt in the world and biological diversity shows its best here. From the altitude of over4,000 meters down to the low hilly-land are permanent snow-accumulated zone, alpine tundra zone with sparse moss plant, alpine meadow zone, sub-alpine meadow zone, dominated by alpine burshwood plant, forest-pasture zone, including mountain coniferous forest region, mountain broad-leaved forest and mountain meadow pasture region alive with Siberian larch, Korean pine, spruce, interspersed with birch, elm and poplar, low-hilly land and mountain marshland as well as canyons eroded and cut by rushing water, with vegetation of brushwood at the low-hilly pasture and aquatic vegetation. The landscapes vary with natural belts and all shades of hue become clear. One cannot but praise such a natural wonder.　

  The virgin forest is a mountain forest of southern taiga type in Siberia, mainly comprising tall and straight larch, vigorous five-leaved pine, tower-shaped spruce and elegant fir. Of which Xinjiang's five-leaved pine and fir are rare plants unique in this place. Besides, there are also European Rhogogaster, Siberian juniper berry, square-branch Altay cypress and valley birch. jointly composing a peculiar forest flora and a typical flora of fully presenting European ecological system in our country as well.

Here is the region with the largest variety of plant in the pastureland of China`s cool temperature zone. At present, there are plants of 83 families,298genuses and 798 kinds known to us.

  Because of sufficient moisture, higher humidity in the air and dead branches and fallen leaves fall here and there, the region has a higher content of organic soil, a great variety of fungi and rich resources. After initial appraisal, the region has been found to have 99 kinds of fungi, of which medicinal ones, such as: Cordyceps, Ganoderma Lucidum in flat head and coniferopsida Ganoderma Lucidum etc. amount to 43 kinds.

  Most of the Kanas is untravled region and the whole area still keeps a primitive state. The forest pasture is an ideal place for various animals to rest and multiply , where bees are flying , butterflies are dancing; worms are chirping, birds are singing, forming a proper biological chain. According to a currentatistics, one find that there are 39kinds of beast,4 kinds of amphibian reptile animal, 117kinds of bird,8kinds of fish and 27 kinds of animals under state protection .Of which the five first-class animals under state protection are snow leopard, black stork, Gulo glulo, sable and north goat and eight endangered animals rated under the International Trade Convention on Wild Animals are snow Ieopard, Gulo glulo, brown bear, otter, lynx, snow rabbit. north goat and red deer. These years, the traces of an elk, a rare animal in the world, have been discovered.

  The Kanas is both beautiful and mysterious , the mountainous region is vast and undulating; the masses of cloud are flying in the empty space of sky, the blue lake-water connects  with jungle and snow mountains. It is a peaceful and harmonious place, where sky and land, mountains and rivers, trees and grass, cattle, sheep and horses depends on and set off one another forest and pasture mix together both fauna and flora keep their primitive state; vertical natural belts are sharp, modern glaciers intact, ecological system unique, natural landscape tranquil and graceful and humanity  landscape magical. Here is a concentration of southern China's graceful beauty and northern scenery, as a superior natural landscape in the land of wonder with very high value for tourist sight-seeing, scientific expedition and study on history and humanity, Its beauty and mystery are, more and more, attracting the world's eyes and favour.

  After making an inspection tour of the Kanas in 1995,a UN official in charge of environmental protection made a comment: The Kanas is the last landscape resources undeveloped and unutilized on earth nowadays and its value in development lies in proving that what a magnificent habitat man used to live in.

  While making an expedition by way of the Kanas, Yeluchucai,an army super visor during the reign of Genghis Khan in the Yuan dynasty was deeply touched by such a splendid view ,chanting:

Not until one comes upon such a wonderful sight in the western region,

Can one begin to believe how ill-informed the eastern lords are.

Round ponds and square pools number three hundred and nineteen.

Wholly calm are clear and limpid spring waters.

  The Kanas Lake was born around 200000 years ago. During the Quaternary Ice Age, the relay lake was formed as a result of being scoured by fossil glacier and the effect that boulder clay blockaded the accumulated valley water Shaping like a crescent moon, the lake is over 24 kilometers wide. about 90 meters deep and the deepest place can reach 184 meters. As the deepest alpine fresh-water lake in China, it has an area of some  46 sq kilometers and water storage of about 4 billion cubic meters, whose surface is at the altitude of 1340 meters.

  If you make a trip to the Kanas Lake ,you have to drive a car northward for 150 kilometers or so from the county seat of Burqin. Then the trip will take you across a desert, over the Odd Stone Ridge, into the Haliutan Kara Kungay upland meadows; by way of valley forest zone ,and scenic spots as well including the Crouching Dragon Bay, the Moon Bay, the Immotal Bay the Maid Bay and the Kanas village before getting to the band of the Kanas Lake.

  The mountainous road is major course here suitable for a cross –country car to drive site the Kanas country villa, a hotel run by the Tourism Administration of Burqin County, which is made up of log cabins, Kazak yurts and traveler's tents for your choice, with a complete set of service facilities for tourist reception.

  The Kanas Lake is actually a section of broad river course rather than a lake. It originates from the broadest section of the Kanas River below the glaciers of the Friendship Peak at the altitude of 4374meters.One must climb up in order to get a better view of the lake because of its slender and crescent shape.

  While getting a bird’s view of the lake at a high place, travelers can catch a sight of three fourths of the lake scene. Around the lake are splendid mountain scenes. peaks rising one higher than other, smokes curling up and reflections of green peaks. Above are white clouds, like silvery waves stirred up from the sky-line, sweeping over the surface of the lake, which are partly hidden and partly visible. Such a big lake surface seems to embrace the whole sky and the mountains around in the water. The lake is riotous with colour, full of changes and is too beautiful to be absorbed all at once. Looking around, in the distance is an expense of white ice-peaks, clothed in silver, nearby are pure white mist-like streamers twining the mountains; mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forests here and there in the mountains link up with intramountain meadows. When autumn comes, on the mountain slope along the bank. Golden coniferous larch ,yellow-turned-red birch leaves and verdant spruce, whose red leaves look like a blaze under the dazzling sunlight, seem to be coated with a layer of golden colour on all the mountains and are reflected in the green water, thus forming a harmony of cool and warm colours and an artistic conception. What’s more, it is rather a gorgeous world, whose landscape of lake and mountain can be called ”Human’s Fairyland”.

  In the early morning, the lake is enveloped in mist. The trees seem to be cutoff by gauze. Partly hidden and partly visible. The surface of the lake is as calm as a mirror. Suddenly, the sound made by fish jumping out of water breaks the stillness of the mountain. The first light of morning just appears on the top of the mountain, the crown is inlaid with silvery frostwork and yet, the water in the shadow is still blackish blue. Foggy air, while receding, is sparkling and exquisite, as clear as a bright mirror, bearing mysterious tranquility and comfort.

  In both distant village and settlement nearby, smoke spiral up from every kitchen, straight columns of smokes rise up into the sky leisurely, responding with the cows strolling for food and everywhere appears peace and solemnity cloaked in miraculous brightness.

  If you want to get a whole view of the lake, take a speedboat at the bank. The round-trip will cost you more than an hour. Traveling by boat makes you have more a sense of intimacy with the lake. When mountains and rivers are dancing on both sides, dazzling beams emerging in the sunlight on the surface of the lake and moist breeze stroking your face, you seem to be moving in a giant natural gallery, with a special delight. In the middle of the lake ,there is an exquisite ait, an enormous rock apparently sticking out of the surface, on which stand pine trees reaching into the sky. At the end of the lake, it seems that grand and splendid snow mountains towering ahead of you. Here, a peculiar view appears with a name of “dead-tree embankment”, for the trees fall down, water rushes down from the upper stream and the water in the lower stream, after wind change sits direction upon meeting a valley, goes up against current, thus forming a two kilometers long wonder. It is said that the wood embankments floats with the rise and fall of water, so called “floating wood-embankments”.

  It is also a special treat to amble with friends along the bank. As the horses here are wild enough, the owner must escort along. While so doing, you can approach a vast vergin forest, find odd flowers and strange grass unknown to you and stop to taste a bowel of scented milky tea in the Tuwa people’s Mongolian tent. Climbing up slightly, you can get a panorama view of the green lake. As The breeze along with moisture is rustling up and horses are haily walking by snorting, with each pace filled with scenes and landscapes, you appear simply to be marching in the sea of pictures.

  After making a 4-kilometer long trip northward along the bank, one will find, on the glossy surface, behind a 20-meter-long sheep back rock filled with scratches left by T-Glaciers. It is learned that there are a dozen spots of rock carvings in the Kanas region, mostly found on the rock-walls of the valley near the mountain and by the river, with rich content. In the rock carvings, there are various animals, including sheep, deer, cattle, horse, wolf, tiger and camel etc; there are scenes of herding, riding, amusement, sacrifice, war and totem, worship of reproductive organs as well, which are all the valuable materials to study the ancient nomad’s society.

  The Kanas Lake is Known as “Decoloure Lake”. One of the reasons is said tobe the effect of interplay between sunlight and vapor of the lake. On the sunny day, when the cloud casting on the lake merges with the sublimated vapor when sunlight shines on the lake, forms magical light and bright colours, set off by the deep and quiet water, constant changes take place in a great variety and different degrees of light.

  One is said to be due to the change of seasons. From the thawing period of April. May to the freezing period of November each year, the lake will witness graphite, blackish green, dark blue and jadite in the course of colour changes due to the fact that the colours reflected on the lake vary with seasons and changes of sunlight at different angles as well as light and functions in different seasons.

  Another is said to have something to do with the catamorphism of limestone in the Kanas River Valley. On the upper reach of the Kanas Lake, abut 40 kilometers away, exists another 10sq-kilometer lake, called Akkuler, meaning “White lake” in Mongolian. Around which is a dominant limestone region, the surface moraine and internal moraine contain a large amount of weathering grayish white rock powder and the thawing water of the Akkuler appear white. The water of such quality flows into the lake together with the river. With the sun and clouds’ shining, the reflection of mountain scenery around on the lake makes it capricious and profuse with variegated colours of blue, green, and purple.

  The Burqin River, as the biggest tributary of the Ertix River, is formed by the convergence of the Kanas River and the Hemu River joins with the Ertix River near the Burqin County seat, where there is a large expense of waters, with river branches criss-crossing and deep forest growing thickly. Therefore, "Burqin "in Mongolian is a poetic name, implying"dark green water".

  The Burqin county seat, named after the river, is located in the north-western frontier of Xinjiang, which is 620kilometers away from the provincial capital city of Urumqi, The county has an area of 10540 sq. kilometers, with a population of 60000, of which Kazak nationality takes up 57%. The Burqin County borders on Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia and is the only county which borders on Russia in west China. The county is rich in hydropower, land, forest, ore, wild medicinal plant resources and resources of tourism as well. In recent years, the county is more a hot-region for tourist sight-seeing and scientific expedition.