What is the scenery of Chaka Salt Lake in October?

Chaka Salt Lake is located in Qaidam Basin, which is about 200,000 square kilometers. Sandwiched between Tongbu Mountain, a branch of Qilian Mountain, and Wangga Xiushan Mountain, a branch of Kunlun Mountain, the lake is 3 100 meters above sea level, 0/5.8 kilometers from east to west and 9.2 kilometers from north to south. It is oval, with a total area of 105 square kilometers, which is equivalent to 16 West Lakes in Hangzhou.

The formation of salt lakes is due to disasters or crustal movement. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was once a part of the ocean. After a long period of crustal movement, this ground was lifted and became the highest plateau in the world. As a result, seawater stayed in some low-lying areas, forming many salt lakes and ponds. Chaka Salt Lake is one of them. The salt in Chaka Lake is almost endless, because the rain will bring more salt from the surrounding mountains.

Chaka Salt Lake used to be an outflow lake, flowing eastward into the basin and the Yellow River. Tectonic uplift occurred around10 ~130,000 years ago, making Chaka Salt Lake an inland lake. Compared with Qinghai Lake, the area here is smaller and the annual rainfall is smaller, so the amount of water injected here is particularly small every year, and the evaporation here is particularly intense, so this salt lake with extremely high salt content can be formed.

Chaka Salt Lake is a salt lake where solid and liquid coexist. The lake area and water of Chaka Salt Lake are obviously influenced by seasons. In rainy season, the lake area can reach 104 square kilometers, which is ten times that of Hangzhou West Lake, but it is obviously reduced in dry season. Lake water belongs to brine type. There is a layer of rock salt at the bottom, generally 5 meters thick, and the thickest part is 9.68 meters. More than ten kilometers of Mayana River flows into the southeast bank of the lake. Other water flowing into the salt lake is a small seasonal river. After several years, the mined brine re-crystallized into a salt layer, which is really inexhaustible.

Different from other salt lakes, Chaka Salt Lake is embedded in snow-capped mountains and grasslands instead of Gobi Desert, and is called "the mirror of the sky" by travelers in China.

Chaka Salt Lake is located in Chaka Town, Wulan County, Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Chaka Town is located at the intersection of National Highway 109 and National Highway 3 15. It is an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, 298 kilometers east of Xining, the provincial capital, and 200 kilometers west of Delingha, the state capital. Known as the East Gate of Qaidam, it was the only place for businessmen and tourists to enter Xinjiang and Tibet in history.

The geographical coordinates of Chaka Salt Lake are 99 02 ′ ~ 99 02 ′ east longitude and 3618 ′ ~ 36 45 ′ north latitude. Located in the west of Chaka Basin, it is 15.8km long and 9.2km wide, with an area of154km2, and the lake is 3059m above sea level. Chaka basin is 80 kilometers long from east to west, 30 kilometers wide and covers an area of 2,400 square kilometers. There is Mount Ella in the south and Nanshan in Qinghai in the north, separated from Qinghai Lake by water. Chaka River, Mohe River and Xiaochahanwusu River, which are radially distributed on the edge of the salt lake, enter the lake, and spring water develops in the east of the lake area to replenish groundwater in the Chaka Salt Lake Basin.

Chaka Salt Lake is called "the mirror of the sky" in China by travelers, and it is also called "the four scenic spots in Qinghai" together with Ta 'er Temple, Qinghai Lake and Tianchi Lake in Mengda, and it is rated as one of the "55 places that people must visit in their lifetime" by National Tourism Geography magazine.