Lhalu wetland in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region extends kile a band from east to west with the average elevation is 3645 meters. It is the highest and largest nature wetland and the only inland wetland within a city in China.

The Lhalu wetland locates in the north of the city of Lhasa and it covers an area of 12.2 square kilometers. More than 95 percent of the wetland is covered by trees and plants.

Being an urban natural wetland with the highest altitude and largest acreage in the world, the Lhalu Wetland as China's unique urban natural inland wetland has improved its conditions as the government has allocated sufficient fund and launched efficient measures. Wild birds such as brown-headed gulls, ruddy shelducks and bar-headed geese come here and even black-necked crane as the national first-class protection animal can be seen in Lhalu Wetland.

A conservation project dedicated to the protection of the Lhalu wetland was initiated early in 1995, and a variety of protection measures have been taken to effectively ensure the local biodiversity preserved and vegetation coverage increased

For most young Tibetans, living an environment-friendly lifestyle has been widely taken as one of the sets of modern creeds.

An environmental official of the municipal government tells that the Lhalu Wetland boasts an overall area of 12.2 km², with a 6.6 km² core zone, a 3.39 km² buffer zone and a trail zone of 2.21 km². The total area of the core zone equals 11.5 percent of the urban area.

According to an environmental report, now the plants at the wetland are totally investigated and identified into 52 genuses of 30 families, where there are 18 aquatic and hygrophyte species, and the others are mesophyte and mesophyte-xerophyte plants, including 17 monocotyledon species and 29 dicotyledon species. Among the 30 species, Asteraeeae (9 species, 8 genuses), Gramineae (6 species, 6 genuses) and Cyperaceae (4 species, 4 genuses) altogether take up 41.3% of the entire vegetation.

The intendant to the wetland introduced that there are 43 species of terrestrial wildlife, 152 species of aquatic wildlife, and 101 species of insect.

Black-necked cranes and Bearded vultures (or Lammergeier) have been listed under the state's first grade protection. Himalayan Griffon is under the state's second grade protection. Another five species including ruddy shelducks, snow trouts (Schizothorax plagiostomus) are placed under the provincial level protection.

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