Tianshan is a national-level forest park. [Photo/ts.cn]

About 40 kilometers away from the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region’s Urumqi city is Tianshan Grand Canyon, a beautiful scenic tourist attraction hidden in the mountains.

With an average altitude of 2,020 meters, an average temperature of 4-6 C, and covering an area over 1,000 square kilometers, this canyon is a national 5A forest park and one of the most well-preserved in China.

Tianshan is a place of dreams for adventurers and scholars alike. It features steep hills, mysterious forests, green valley grasslands and galloping streams. There are eight unique scenic spots that you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere in China, from swan lakes to glacier peaks to Kazakh cultural parks.

There's only one Tianshan Grand Canyon, but it hosts two lakes, three waterfalls, four creeks, 18 valleys and so much more. Beautiful scenery aside, a tourist can spend days exploring various activities: skating, skiing, cruising, hiking, taking pictures and more. It's more than a scenic area. It's a cultural world between the deserts of Xinjiang that gives you a full impact of what history means.