China South

With the mega-event of the Summer Olympics coming to Beijing this year, a great deal of focus will be on China’s showcase cities as engines of modernization and commerce. Overlooked may be the incredible geography and ethnic diversity, stretching from the 15,000-foot mountains of Yunnan to the karst formations, clustered villages and rice terraces of Guizhou. These two southern Chinese provinces are populated by a range of colorful ethnic groups perhaps equaled nowhere else in
the world.