At first glance, the Zhangya Danxia Landforms look like something out of a surrealist painting. But if you find yourself wandering the foothills of the Qilian Mountains in the Gansu Province of China and staring at peaks of incredible striped sandstone, we can reassure you now that it’s no hallucination.

About 540 million years ago, this geological park was part of the ocean. But as the tectonic plates collided and the land folded, these unique mountains were formed. Red sandstone was deposited when rivers formed in the area, and as the ground sank into a basin, mudstone collected on the red sandstone. The vibrant colourful layers of the landforms led the very apt nickname of ‘The Rainbow Mountains’.