Overview

The Miao & Dong Autonomous Prefecture in Southeastern Guizhou is located in the southeastern part of Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. The prefecture adjoins Hunan Province to the east, Guangxi Autonomous Region to the south, and Zhunyi and Tongren prefectures of Guizhou to the north. The prefecture has a population of 427.3 million of which 80.7% are minorities. The prefecture administrates a city (Kaili, the capital) and 15 counties and is home to 38 minority groups, including Miao, Dong, Han, Buyi, Shui, Yao, Zhuang, Tujia nationalities.

The Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in Southeastern Guizhou is also a tourist resort. It is named by the United Nations as "a famous resort to return to nature" and is known as "the last ballad of the human kind and the homeland for the exhausted souls". There are the tourist attractions of the typical Cambrian Period (0.5-0.6 billion years ago) fossils (in Taijiang County), the historic town of Zhenyuan, splendid mountains, rivers, lakes and waterfalls all around the region. The folk customs are described as a combination of the hairstyle of Tang Dynasty (618-907), the costumes of Song Dynasty (960-1279), the architecture of Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1616-1911) dynasties, and the customs of Wei (220-265) and Jin (265-420) periods.