Yangbi County, the full name of Yangbi Yaobi Yi Autonomous County, is located in the west of Yunnan Province, in the middle of Dali Autonomous Prefecture, and in the mountains of western Yunnan Plateau. Yangbi County is famous for its rivers flowing through its territory. In ancient times, there was a saying that "the sample is a river", which is the second largest tributary of the Lancang River, and it is also called the four sister rivers in western Yunnan with Jinsha River, Lancang River and Nujiang River.
Cangshan Lake is famous for painting through the ages, and Erhai Lake has no strings. Cangshan Lake in Dali, also known as Diancang Mountain, consists of 19 peaks with an altitude of more than 3,000 meters. It is called "Nineteen Peak of Cangshan Mountain", and the main peak is Malong Peak with an altitude of 4 122 meters. Erhai Lake is located at the east foot of Cangshan Mountain, and Yangbi County is located at the west foot of Cangshan Mountain. It is an important town on Bonan Ancient Road and Tea Horse Ancient Road. From Yangbi County, along the ancient road to the west, you can reach Myanmar and India, and the famous Yunnan-Myanmar Highway also passes through the territory.
Yangbi County has a long history and is known as the "source of Canger culture". Historically, this area was once the territory of six Mongolian imperial edicts, and was later unified by Nanzhao. With beautiful scenery and forest coverage rate of 83%, it is known as the "Pearl at the southern foot of Hengduan Mountains".
The most famous scenic spot in Yangbi County is Shimenguan, also known as Cangshan Shimenguan Grand Canyon. Cuiping Mountain and Qingliang Mountain confront each other into a canyon, like ghosts splitting gods. Xu Xiake once traveled here and described in his travel notes: "Looking eastward, the clouds suddenly burst out, revealing two green hibiscus, rising straight into the sky, facing each other, overlapping mountains and clouds appearing, which is amazing."
Yunnan is located at the southeast edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where the Eurasian plate meets the Indian plate. There are strong tectonic movements, such as Xiaojiang fault and Honghe fault. There have been many moderate and strong earthquakes in history. The Yangbi earthquake is related to the compression between the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate and the recent active plate.
Continental drift theory-plate tectonic theory divides the world into six plates, namely Eurasia plate, Pacific plate, America plate, Africa plate, Indian Ocean plate and Antarctica plate. The Eurasian plate is composed of Europe and Asia, and is located in the vast area west of the Western Pacific Trench System, north of the Himalayan Alps, east of the mid-Atlantic ridge and south of the mid-Arctic ridge.
Indian Ocean Plate, including Indian subcontinent and Indian Ocean, is a part of Indo-Australia Plate. It is separated from Madagascar in eastern Africa and drifts northward 15cm every year. It collided with the Eurasian plate about 50 million to 55 million years ago. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Himalayas were formed by the collision and extrusion of the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate.
At present, the Indian plate moves 5 cm to the northeast every year, and the Eurasian plate moves 2 cm to the north every year. The compression between the two has always existed, so the tectonic movement near the plate boundary is strong.
The collision and compression between plates are usually accompanied by strong geological activities, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Most major earthquakes in the world are distributed on plate boundaries. Diancang Mountain is generally the dividing line between Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and Hengduan Mountains, while Yangbi County is located on the fault zone, so there will be many earthquakes in one day.