Pudacuo National Park is located about 25km east of Shangri-La County. As the first national park on the Chinese mainland, Pudacuo was open to visitors in 2007. It incorporates the Bita Lake Nature Reserve and the Duhu Scenic Area in the Hongshan region. As such they are part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas World Heritage Site. Pudacuo qualifies as a natural wonderland. It contains endemic species of fish found nowhere else in the world, rare and beautiful orchids, black-necked cranes and taxus, a yew whose extract are indispensable to the creation of many cancer drugs.
