Dali, an Ancient Walled City
Introduction
Dali, which lies amid the Cang Mountains on the shores of the Lake Erhai, was once regarded as the political, economic and cultural hub of Yunnan. It once served as the capital of the Nanzhao Kingdom, a rival to China’s Tang Dynasty (609 – 960) that contained much of what is now Yunnan. Later it became an administrative center during the Song Dynasty (960 – 1079). Abandoned after the Yuan Dynasty’s Kublai Khan razed the capital to the ground in 1252, it was renovated by the Ming rulers in 1382.
Dali, a Historic City from the Ming Dynasty
This ancient walled city bristles with a dizzying mélange of ethnic groups, mostly Bai as well as Yi and Hui, who have made it their home for the past 4000 years. This translates into an exhilarating, cultural concoction, which has been shaped by the influence of the Chinese of the central plains, the Tibetans of the Northwest Himalayas as well as other Southeast Asian cultures and indigenous ethnic minorities.