Tenglong Cave, Solutional cave in Lichuan, China.
Tenglong Cave is a large solutional cave in Lichuan featuring an entrance approximately 74 meters high and 64 meters wide that opens into extensive underground passages. The interior contains multiple levels and chambers carved by natural water erosion over geological time.
The cave system developed through karst processes where water dissolved and carved limestone over millions of years. These slow geological activities created the multiple levels and chambers visible today.
The name Tenglong means "soaring dragon cave". The cave lies in Lichuan, Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, and the Qingjiang River's main course flows through it. At the entrance the river forms a waterfall over 50 metres wide with a drop of more than 30 metres, whose roar can be heard two or three kilometres away.
The cave lies about 6.8 km from Lichuan City, and underground temperatures stay between 16 and 18 degrees Celsius all year, so a light jacket helps. Near the entrance the Qingjiang forms a waterfall over 30 m high and some 50 m wide; its roar carries two to three kilometres. Prefectural authorities have considered a tourist railway linking the cave with the Enshi Grand Canyon Scenic Area via a station on the Yichang–Wanzhou line.
The Qingjiang River does not rise in the cave but flows through it: the main stream of the Qingjiang runs through the cave passage, and where it reaches the entrance it drops more than 30 m over a fall about 50 m wide. The roar can still be heard two or three kilometres from the cave mouth.
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