Zhangye UNESCO Global Geopark (Zhangye UGGp) is located in Zhangye City, Gansu Province, centered on Sunan Yugur Autonomous County, with a total area of 1289.71 square kilometers.
It is located at the boundary of the first step of the transition from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the the Inner Mongolian Plateau, in the middle of the northern slope of the main Qilian Mountains, and in the transition zone from the Qilian Mountains to the Hexi Corridor. The Jiugequan ophiolite suite in the west of the geopark is an important material composition of the oceanic crust nearly 500 million years ago, which truly records the evolution of the ancient Qilian Ocean to the Qilian Mountains. The Colorful Hills are like colorful silk floating on the Hexi Corridor. Their changeable colors, fantastic shapes and grand scale are among the world's geological wonders.
The Zhangye UGGp Museum covers an area of 20,000 square meters, a building area of 7,300 square meters, and a total investment of 112 million yuan. It was completed and opened for operation on August 1, 2015. The exhibition hall of the museum is divided into the interpretation hall, the landscape grand view hall, the 4D cinema, the dreamland hall, the temporary exhibition hall, and the VR science popularization experience hall. It has a steel-concrete special-shaped space truss structure, which integrates five major functions of collection, protection, research, display, and education.
The Zhangye World Geological Museum is a professional geological museum in the industry. It has 80 samples of various rocks, minerals and paleontology in the museum. The exhibition hall uses words, pictures, sound, light and electrical equipment to introduce the formation and characteristics of the colorful hills in the Zhangye World Geological Park to tourists in an all-round and three-dimensional way. Other red-bed landforms in China and the world, as well as the geological and geomorphic types and mineral reserves of Zhangye as a landscape park, have solved the questions of tourists about the formation process of the landscape and geological relics in the scenic area after visiting the scenic area, and have played a better role in the popular science education and publicity of the geological park. Since its opening in August 2015, the museum has received 600,000 tourists in total, with a maximum of 16,000 tourists per day. It has provided interpretation services for the government, schools and other visiting groups and has won unanimous acclaim from all walks of life. It has been rated as "History Reconstruction Project · Museum" and "Gansu Provincial Characteristic Science Popularization Base".
Geoheritage Conservation
Geotourism