Lige Peninsula (里格半岛) is the most photogenic spot at Lugu Lake. Almost every visitor to the lake takes a panorama of Lige Peninsula from the viewpoint — a green peninsula reaching into the blue water, lined with rows of lake-view rooms.

But few know that Lige Peninsula originally held only four or five households. How did this village grow from a small fishing hamlet into what it is today?

1927: Lige in Rock's Eyes

The first person to introduce Lige village to the world was the Austrian-American explorer Joseph Rock (约瑟夫·洛克).

In 1927 Rock came to Lugu Lake. In a set of photographs and articles he published in National Geographic magazine, he introduced Lugu Lake and the Mosuo people (摩梭) to the Western world for the first time. In his photographs, Lige village was a small settlement on the peninsula, with only four or five households.

In those days Lige was just an ordinary Mosuo fishing village. The villagers farmed, fished and herded, living a self-sufficient life. There was no road, no tourists; the outside world barely knew there was such a place as Lugu Lake.

This state of affairs lasted a long time. Even as late as 1996, Lige village still had fewer than 20 households.

1998–2003: Five Years of Unplanned Growth

The turning point came in 1998.

By that year, tourism development at Daluoshui (大落水) village was already in full swing, and tourists began walking along the shore towards Lige. The Lige villagers discovered that running a guesthouse made far more money than farming.

So every household began to build.

There was no planning, no approval; they built as high as they liked, wherever they liked. On the peninsula, which had held only four or five households, more than twenty guesthouses shot up overnight.

Houses crowded the shoreline; rubbish went straight into the lake, sewage straight into the lake. These five years were the period of greatest change in Lige village — a quaint little Mosuo fishing village turned into a chaotic, unplanned tourist settlement.

2004 to Today: Lige Under Government Planning

In 2004, the government stepped in. A planning scheme was issued, requiring Lige's buildings to follow a unified style, pollution-control facilities to catch up, and rubbish to be collected centrally.

But planning did not fully halt Lige's growth. Guesthouses went up more and more, ever more lavish. The old Mosuo log houses (木楞房) became three- or four-storey "mock log-built structures" — Mosuo-style on the outside, modern hotel fittings within.

Mosuo culture in Lige village also receded. Some of the original Mosuo people moved up the mountain and rented their houses to outsiders to run as guesthouses; others stayed in the village but no longer farmed, switching entirely to tourism.

Why All the Peninsula Guesthouses Closed

Visitors to Lige in the last couple of years will have noticed: not a single guesthouse remains on the peninsula.

Around 2020, as part of an environmental demolition, the lakeside guesthouses on the peninsula were all torn down — not just closed for business, but the houses themselves demolished. The reason is the same as the lake-protection drive across all of Lugu Lake: all residential houses and guesthouses within 80 metres of the shore had to move out, so that sewage and rubbish would no longer flow straight into the lake.

Now only the ruins of a few old houses remain on the peninsula, unoccupied. But in the panorama shot from the viewpoint, the outline of the peninsula reaching into the lake is still there — only you can no longer see lake-view rooms on it.

Now Lige's accommodation is all in the village behind the peninsula and on the hillside. The view is not as direct as on the peninsula, but you can still take in the general panorama. In recent years Lige has even opened new guesthouses — in 2025 there were still courtyards newly renovated and opening — but the bustle is far less than before; one visitor commented, "Lige Peninsula used to be so famous, now it's so run-down."

Lige Peninsula itself is still a deep-water bay, where pig-trough boats (猪槽船) can beach directly; the pier for boat tours of the lake is still there.

How Lige Differs from Daluoshui

Many visitors cannot tell the difference between Lige and Daluoshui.

Daluoshui (大落水) was the first village developed at Lugu Lake, and the place where tour groups stay most often. Daluoshui has a pier, a visitor centre, and a commercial street; eating, boating and transport are all convenient. But Daluoshui is crowded, noisy, and heavily commercialised.

Lige (里格) was originally far quieter than Daluoshui, and the scenery finer. Lige Peninsula is the best viewing angle at Lugu Lake, so Lige quickly became a must-visit spot for social media. But Lige's problem is that the place is too small: the peninsula is only so big, and once too many tourists arrive it becomes impossibly crowded.

The Lesson Lige Village Offers Lugu Lake

The transformation of Lige village is a microcosm of tourism development at Lugu Lake as a whole.

From a fishing hamlet of four or five households to today's internet-famous village, Lige took less than thirty years. In those thirty years, the villagers' lives did improve — incomes rose, houses are new, children can go to school.

But what was the price?

The original Mosuo culture is disappearing. The original natural environment is being damaged. The Lige that was once "sitting on the peninsula, watching pig-trough boats row out onto the lake" is gone.

When you travel to Lige now, what you see is not a Mosuo village but a tourist resort. This is not the problem of Lige alone — it is the problem of Lugu Lake as a whole.

How to balance tourism development with cultural protection, and economic growth with ecological protection, is the greatest question Lugu Lake now faces.