Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape

UNESCO-listed cluster of Luoyue people rock paintings on cliffs above the Zuojiang River in Guangxi, dating from the 5th century BCE to the 2nd century CE — the largest rock art concentration in southeast Asia.

The Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2016, comprising 38 sites with rock paintings spread along the Zuojiang (Left River) and Mingjiang River systems in the Chongzuo region of southern Guangxi. The paintings were made by the Luoyue people, ancestors of the modern Zhuang ethnic group, between the 5th century BCE and the 2nd century CE.

The site takes its name from Huashan — Painted Mountain — the most significant and spectacular cluster, where around 1,900 individual figures appear on a vertical cliff face rising up to 40 m above the river. The paintings were made using a reddish-brown haematite pigment, applied with brushes or fingers to the smooth limestone surfaces. They depict human figures in a characteristic frontal pose with arms raised and legs bent — a posture scholars interpret as ritual dancing — along with bronze drums, dogs, swords, and boats. The largest figures stand over 3 m tall.

The setting is visually dramatic: the painted cliffs rise from the river's edge, accessible only by boat. The surrounding landscape of forested karst hills, terraced fields and Zhuang villages has changed little since the paintings were made, lending the site an unusual cultural continuity.

The Chongzuo Huashan Scenic Area provides boat tours from the Mingjiang dock that pass the main cliff faces; guides explain the paintings' iconography and significance in the context of Luoyue ritual practice. A small museum at the dock provides background on the archaeological and ethnographic research conducted at the site since the 1950s.