Heilongjiang · The Lava Dammed a River and Made Five Lakes
Wudalianchi Volcanic Lakes (五大连池)
A field of volcanoes in the far northeast of China, where lava flows blocked a river in the eighteenth century and turned it into a chain of five lakes. The name means five connected pools, and the rock that made them is walked on from boardwalks.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | A volcanic field of cinder cones and lava flows, with five lakes formed where the lava dammed a river |
|---|---|
| Where | Heihe prefecture, northern Heilongjiang, in the far northeast near the Russian border |
| The name | Five connected pools. The lakes are a chain, not a group, because they are a drowned river |
| How recent | The last eruptions here were in the Qing and were written down at the time, which is rare for a Chinese volcano |
| What you walk on | Boardwalks across the lava, a path around a crater rim, and a stepped route to the summit of a cone |
| Two kinds of lava | Angular broken rubble in some places, a folded ropy skin in others. Both are here and both are reachable |
| Also known for | Cold mineral springs, drunk and bathed in, with a sanatorium culture around them |
| Time needed | Two days. The cones, the lava and the lakes are spread over a wide area |
Why Go
A River Under the Rock
1. The name is the mechanism
Wudalianchi means five connected pools, and the shape of those pools is the whole story. There was a river here. In the eighteenth century two of the cones in this field erupted, the lava ran across the valley and set, and the river could no longer get past it. What was a single channel became a chain of five lakes strung along the old course, each one held back by rock that arrived after the water did.
That makes this an unusually legible piece of landscape. Most volcanic scenery asks you to imagine the process; here the before and after are both still present, and the relationship between them is the reason the place has a name. The lava that did it is what the boardwalks cross, and the cones that produced it stand on the skyline in the picture at the top of this page.
2. Two lavas, a few minutes apart
Lava sets in different ways depending on how hot, how gassy and how fast-moving it was, and the two ends of that range are usually described with Hawaiian words because Hawaii is where geologists named them. One is a field of sharp broken blocks, loose underfoot and awkward to cross. The other is a smooth folded skin, wrinkled into parallel ridges like a rug pushed along a floor, because the surface chilled into a crust while the liquid underneath kept moving and dragged it.
Both are in the pictures below and both are within a short walk here, which is not common. The blocky one is the reason the boardwalks exist: it is genuinely unpleasant to walk on and the scenic area calls it the ocean of stones on its signs. The ropy one rewards looking closely, because the direction of the folds is the direction the flow was travelling, frozen in place.
The dates matter for the same reason. Volcanic activity in China is usually dated by laboratory methods, which produce a number with an error bar attached and no human being in it. Here the eruptions happened while the Qing state was keeping records, and they were written down. That changes the experience of standing on the flow: this rock was not merely measured to be young, it was seen to arrive.
One more thing is visible in the pictures and worth knowing before you go. The interpretive signs here are in three languages, and the third is Russian. This is border country, the Amur and the Russian city on its far bank are close, and a share of the visitors and of the mineral-water trade comes from that direction. It is a different northeast from the one most itineraries show.
The catch. This is a long way from anywhere: the far north of Heilongjiang, several hours beyond Harbin, and the journey is the main cost of visiting. The sites are scattered across a wide field and need a car or the scenic area’s own transport. Winter is long, hard and closes much of what is worth seeing, and the summer season is correspondingly short. The interpretation is thin in English despite the trilingual signs, and a visitor without any geology will get less out of the lava than the lava deserves.
Orientation
A Field, Not a Mountain
This is a scattered site rather than a single peak. The cones stand across a plain, the lava fields run between them, and the five lakes lie along the old river course. The two youngest cones and the lava around them are the geological core and where the boardwalks are; the lakes are reached separately, and the mineral springs are a third area with its own buildings.
Because of that spread, transport is the planning problem. The scenic area runs its own vehicles between the main points and a hired car is easier. Two days lets you do the lava and a cone on one day and the lakes and the springs on the other, which is the split most visitors end up making.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
Wear boots with ankle support
Even off the boardwalks for a few metres, this is broken rock that moves.
Look at the two lavas together
The blocky field and the ropy one are the same eruption behaving differently. Seeing them in one day is the point of coming.
Allow for the distance
It is a long way north of Harbin, and treating it as a day trip from anywhere does not work.
Try the water
The cold mineral springs are why a share of the visitors are here, and drinking from them is part of the local routine rather than a tourist novelty.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| June to August | The short northern summer, with everything open, the scrub green and long daylight | The busiest weeks, and mosquitoes are serious on the lava edges |
| September | Cold clear air, birch turning yellow against the black rock, and thin crowds | The season closes quickly toward the end of the month |
| May | Thaw, first green and very few people | Wet underfoot and some services not yet running |
| October to April | Snow on black lava, which is a photograph nobody else has | A long hard northeastern winter. Much is closed and the cold is severe |
Context
China’s Volcanoes, and the People Who Watched One
China has a great deal of volcanic rock and very few eruptions in living memory, which makes its volcanic sites feel archaeological rather than active. Most of them are dated by laboratory work on the rock. This field is the exception that a visitor can stand on: the last eruptions here happened while a literate state was administering the region, and there are written accounts of what people saw.
That puts Wudalianchi in a small international category. Vesuvius has Pliny, Iceland has saga and annal, Japan has temple records. The value of such accounts is not that they are more accurate than the rock, because they are not. It is that they describe the event from the point of view of the people it happened to, which is the one thing the rock cannot supply.
The other half of the site is the water. Groundwater moving through young volcanic rock picks up carbon dioxide and dissolved minerals, and the springs here are cold, fizzy and heavily mineralised. That has supported a health-resort culture for a long time, with sanatoria, bottling and a seasonal population who come to drink and bathe on a schedule. It is a very Chinese and very Russian thing to do, this is the border between the two, and the visitor book at the springs shows both. The comparison that matters here is with Changbaishan, the other volcano on this site: that one is a single large mountain with a lake in its head, and this one is a field of small cones with a river trapped behind them.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · about 900 km southeast
Changbai Mountain (长白山)
The other famous volcano of the northeast, and the opposite kind: one big cone with a crater lake.
Spot · about 700 km south
Puppet Palace of Manchukuo (伪满皇宫)
In Changchun, on the way back south.
Where to Base
Heihe (黑河)
Heihe is the border city on the Amur, looking across the river at Blagoveshchensk in Russia, and it is the prefecture town for this area. There are flights and a long road or rail journey from Harbin, and the Russian presence in the shops and signage is part of what makes the city worth an evening.
Most visitors stay at the scenic area itself rather than in Heihe, because the site is spread out and the springs have accommodation attached. Heihe is the arrival point and the border view.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
On site · one day
The lava and a cone
The boardwalks across both lava surfaces, the climb to a crater rim, and the walk round it.
On site · one day
The lakes and the springs
The chain of lakes along the drowned river, and the mineral springs where people come to drink.
Guided · 6 days
The volcanic northeast
This field and Changbaishan, which between them cover both ways a volcano can be built, with the border country in between.
Come for the rock and stay for the reason it is here. Five lakes in a row because a flow of lava crossed a valley and a river had nowhere to go; a field of broken blocks and, a few minutes away, a surface folded like cloth; and eruptions recent enough that somebody wrote down what they looked like. It is a long way north and there is nothing else like it in China.
The Far Northeast, Done Properly
Almost no foreign itinerary goes this far north, and the ones that do treat it as a stop rather than a subject. Tell us your dates and our local team will give the lava a full day with somebody who can read it, get you to the lakes and the springs, and build the border city in rather than around.