Erhai Lake is the largest highland lake next to Dianchi and one of the seven biggest fresh water lakes in China. It means, 'sea shaped like an ear', in Chinese. Implying that the lake is ear shaped and as large as a sea, hence it was so named. The lake covers an area of 250 square kilometers and is located about two kilometers east of Dali. It is like a crescent lying between Cangshan and Dali city as seen from Cangshan Mount. In a sunny day, the crystal waters of Erhai Lake and the snow mantled Cangshan Mount radiate with each other. Thus the scene was commonly described as 'Silver Cangshan and Jade Erhai'.

The water of the Erhai Sea is greenish, shining, and shines with the snow on the Cangshan Mountain mutually. It forms the beautiful landscape in Dali area - "the wind of Xiaguan, the flower of Shangguan, the snow of the Cangshan Mountain and the moon of the Erhai Sea”. Among these four scenes, the snow and the moon are the most fascinating and had a beautiful descriptions of "the silver Cangshan Mountain and the jade Erhai Sea" from ancient times. In addition, the Erhai Sea and the Cangshan Mountain create the beautiful Erhai Park.

The Erhai Park took the advantage of the rich nature surroundings, as the building base and is embellished and decorated with man-made scenes, covering an area of 1,150,000 square meters. Like the animals and plants in the great Hengduan Mountain area west of the Yunnan.
There are green pines and various flowers planted on the mountain such as the camellia, cuckoo, oriental cherry and sweet-scented osmanthus of Burma. On the top of the mountain, there are pavilion, corridor, zoo, tea pub, restaurant, and so forth.

The surrounding islands, temples and villages are worth visiting too. Golden Shuttle Island (Jinsuo Dao), and the nearby fishing community of Bai Minority do really deserve a visit with its attractive Bai culture and lifestyle, and because of the rare beauty of the lake and its surrounding scenery. The most unforgettable Xiaoputuo Dao, originally devoted to Bodhisattva Kwan-yin, can be traced back to the 15th century. Though tiny and called xiao (which means small in Chinese), one can still experience and see the typical ancient Chinese Buddhist temple's unique architectural styles of its buildings' pointed eaves and decorations on this peninsular.