The Lijiang River originates from Mao'er Mountain, the first peak in South China, and belongs to the upper reaches of the Guijiang River of the the Pearl River water system, with a total length of 214 kilometers, and 100 kilometers flowing through the Lijiang River scenic spot. The scenery on the surface and banks of the Li River is a karst landform formed hundreds of millions of years ago, known as the pearl on the crown of the world's karst landscape, and has earned Guilin the reputation of "the best in the world".

The Lingqu Canal was excavated in 214 BC. It, together with Dujiangyan Irrigation Project in Sichuan Province and Zhengguo Canal in Shaanxi Province, is called the three major water conservancy projects in the process of Qin's unification of China. It was recognized by the International Industrial Heritage Protection Committee (TICCIH) as "an important historical site of canals in the world". In 2018, it was honored as the "World Irrigation Engineering Heritage" and "the pearl of ancient water conservancy buildings in the world".

The Pinglu Canal is a backbone project of the Western Land Sea New Channel, with a total length of 134.2 kilometers. It is constructed as a first-class inland waterway and can accommodate 5000 ton ships with an annual one-way capacity of 89 million tons. Opened up the bottleneck of "river sea intermodal transportation" in Guangxi, connected the Xijiang River and Beibu Gulf Port, and formed a strategic channel connecting ASEAN.