Chaka Salt Lake

Chaka Salt Lake lies near Chaka Town, Wulan County, Qinghai, in the eastern part of the Caidamu Basin. Chaka Salt Lake Chaka Salt Lake: Chaka means “Salt lake” in Mongolian. The area is about more than 100 kilometers.

Chaka Salt Lake is not only famous for producing Qinghai salt, but also for the unique landscapes in the area. Millions of tourists from all over the world travel there every year, and now the area is considered a famous scenic spot of Qinghai.

Being at Chaka Salt Lake is as if you had entered a fairyland. The lake's breadth is 9.2 kilometers and the length is 15 kilometers, with a total area of 105 square kilometers. The salt stratum looks like a saucepan with a middle thickness of 10 meters, storing an impressive 45 million tons. There is salt everywhere: on one's feet, on the hills and rocks around the lake, on the beach, everywhere one looks. Even the air smells of salt. Whether it is a hot summer day or a bitter winter day, you can dig a small hole and it will fill in with brine, which later will be filled with regenerated white salt.

You can see the trench left by the excavator ship, 3 meters deep, 20 meters wide, and hundreds of meters long, which will be filled with snow white and fine recrystallized salt in a few years. It is excavated every year, but it will replenish, so the salt cannot be used up. It cannot be depleted even in 600 years, considering the lake's regenerative ability and storage.

The highlight of the lakes is their reflective surfaces, that mirror the passing clouds, the distant mountains and the nomad's tents and herds that can be found all around the area. Distinctive in this region is the salty smell, that can be perceived from anywhere near the lakes and that has lead to their description as a world of salt. Locals make a living from dredging the salt and riding tourists around on a freight train, whose tracks you can see here. For those into hiking, a walk along the Salt Bridge that crosses the lakes, running a total of 60km, is an interesting experience, as is a look into the salt house that can be found beside the main lake. The lakes are probably best seen as a side trip for those after an extensive camping or hiking experience, since the sights here are not exceptionally spectacular, but at the moment retain a still beauty.