South China Karst is composed by Stone Forest of Yunnan, Libo Karst Region of Guizhou and WuLong Karst Park of Chongqing; among them, Stone Forest is the AAAAA national level scenic spot. It has been awarded the World National Heritage by unanimous vote on the 31 session of the World Heritage Convention on June 27, 2007.

South China Karst covers an area of 50,000 square kilometers, mostly located in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi, and has a wide variety of karst topography. This world heritage contains a series of scenic spots: Libo karst, Stone Forest karst and WuLong karst. South China Karst shows the typical karst landform of a moist tropical and subtropical region. Stone Forest is the world's greatest natural phenomenon and a landmark of the world.

Karst namely rock dissolving landscape, it is the kind of landscape developed from the carbonate rocks mainly with limestone and dolomite. The karst area in China has characteristics as: large in area, various in landscape diversity, typical and rich in biological ecological, etc.

“South China Karst” covers an area which takes up 55% of the entire karst region of China. It is the only declaration project that Chinese government applied to World Natural Heritage in 2006. It is composed by the sword-shaped, cone-shaped and tower-shaped karst of Stone Forest in Yunnan, Forest Karst of Libo Karst Region in Guizhou and the natural stone bridge, chasm, doline of WuLong Karst Park in Chongqing. It was formed in the years between 500 thousand to 300 million years, the total area reaches 1,460 square kilometers, among which, the nomination (the core area) is 480 square kilometers and buffer area is 980 square kilometers.

This region includes the most representative karst landform morphology of China, many attractions get a high reputation at home and abroad: Yunnan Stone Forest is famous for it is magnificent, rare, dangerous, elegant, quiet, mysterious and vast, it is called "the Essence of World’s Karst”; Guizhou Libo karst area is a gathering place of Buyi, Shui, Miao and Yao nationalities, and has once been selected in “Top 10 Chinese Beautiful Forest".

"South China Karst" obtains highly attention and approval from home and aboard in the geological features, biological ecology, aesthetics, national culture, the world value (outstanding universal value a long time. "South China Karst" declaration to world natural heritage gains highly support from Chinese government and the world natural resources conservation union.

According to the provisions of the world heritage committee, "series declaration" heritage can declared in turns, among "South China Karst" multiple candidate areas, Guizhou Libo Karst, Yunnan Stone Forest and Chongqing Wulong Karst have been chosen as the first candidate to declare to World Heritage for the following reasons: first of all, they all have "outstanding common value"; secondly, each of them is the best representative of "South China Karst" types; thirdly, "South China Karst" shows unique karst diversity in a connecting areas, such as the stone forest in plateau regions (Yunnan Stone Forest as a representative); The peak-cluster depression between plateau and lowland (Guizhou Libo karst as a representative); The deep valley karst of north Yangtze River (Chongqing WuLong karst as a representative). Their combination represents the characteristics of the first declaring candidate of "South China Karst".

"South China Karst" is China's first trans-provincial world natural heritage declaration projects, which has been through a long geological time; it shows important and typical natural geographical characteristics and karst landform morphology; it not only remains the karst geological period historical ruins, but also represents an important and ongoing karst process. By uplift effort of Qinghai-Tibet plateau, "South China Karst" has become the structure system evolution and development sample of tropical, subtropical karst rising region, its also provides valuable landscape evidence of modern hydrological nets and formation of Yangtze River Three Gorges, it is quire rare even in the world. It will improve the ecological protection and tourism upgrading in the related regions, if it could be included in the World Heritage List.