The stone forest landform has long been recognized. The term “stone forest ” first appeared in the poem 《Asking Heaven》written by Qu Yuan. Qu Yuan (340-278BC) is a great ancient Chinese poet. He posed more than 170 questions about astronomy, geography, history, philosophy, etc. in his well known poem 《Asking Heaven》, one of the questions is “Is there really stone forest?”.
Where is the stone forest asked by Qu Yuan is hard to identify, but the vivid geomorphological term “stone forest” became the earliest karst term which has been used later in China and the world.