The Ancient Alu Cave, reputed as 'the first wonderful cave in Yunnan', is located within the precincts of Luuxi County in Southeast Yunnan, 2.5 kms from the county seat, 80 kms from the famous Stone Forest and 200 kms from Kunming.
With an area of 1.6 square kilometers, the cave is a formation of karsts caverns. In the Song and Yuan Dynasty, one of thirty-seven old wild tribes called 'Alu' (means water and stone in the Yi language) once lived in the caves, hence the name 'the Ancient Alu Cave', in which is full of various kinds of unique, natural, wonderful scenes.
It is composed of nine peaks and 18 caverns. The cave has many specific and strange characteristics, like spring running out of cave, deep river flowing in the cave, long tunnel zigzagging along the cave, sky seeing through the cave. It is a spectacular lime form cave with 5000-metre-long passage accessible to the tourist, including Alu Origin Cave, Jade Pillar Cave, Green Jade Cave and Jade Stalagmite River as well.
The Ancient Alu Caves have been a tourist attraction since olden times. Beginning from the Yuan Dynasty, men of letters came to the caves for sightseeing. The famous geographer Xu Xiake of the Ming Dynasty twice came here for geographical investigation. In the fifties of this century, Hungarian cave specialist visited this place and admired it as a wonderful spectacle. In 1987, the acting general manager of the American Eastern Sun Prospecting Corporation visited the caves. Later he said with deep emotion 'I am very proud to have been the first American to pay a visit to the Alu Caves. I have been to many caves, and I can say that the Alu Cave are the best and most beautiful of all'.