China - Jehol Biota Fossil Sites in Chaoyang (2026)

The World Natural Heritage nominated property, Jehol Biota Fossil Sites in Chaoyang, is located in Beipiao, Lingyuan and Longcheng in Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province, China. It comprises five components: Lujiatun Fossil Site in Beipiao, Sihetun Fossil Site in Beipiao, Dawangzhangzi Fossil Site in Lingyuan, Dapingfang Fossil Site in Longcheng and Shangheshou Fossil Site in Longcheng. The nominated property covers an area of 3,479.19 hectares, with buffer zones of 5,984.54 hectares. It is situated in the transitional zone from the Inner Mongolia Loess Plateau to the coastal Songliao Plain, with terrain gently sloping from northwest to southeast. It has a north temperate continental monsoon climate and is dominated by low mountains and hills. The Songling Mountains and Nuluerhu Mountains traverse the territory, and four major water systems including the Daling River crisscross the area, forming unique natural and geographical conditions.

The Jehol Biota is a world-class Mesozoic Lagerstätte in East Asia. Its core distribution area covers Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province and the surrounding territories of the former Jehol Province, characterized initially by the fossil assemblage of Eosestheria–Ephemeropsis trisetalis–Lycoptera. It has been studied for more than a century since its first scientific investigation in 1923. The biota flourished in a continental volcanic-lake-forest ecosystem during the Early Cretaceous. Frequent volcanic events resulted in exceptional preservation, allowing complete fossil skeletons as well as soft tissues such as feathers and skin to be preserved, earning it the reputation as the “Pompeii of the Mesozoic”. Its fossil record includes all major groups of vertebrates, as well as numerous invertebrates, plants and fungi, covering nearly all lineages undergoing transition from the Mesozoic to the Cenozoic. In particular, key fossils such as feathered dinosaurs and early birds provide unique evidence for a series of major breakthroughs on evolution. As a world-class fossil treasury, more than 30 papers related with the Jehol Biota have been published in Nature and Science, and has been acclaimed as “the most spectacular palaeontological discovery of the 20th century”.