Dinosaur Fossils Site

Dinosaur Fossils Site

The Dinosaur Fossils Site is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Erlian area is one of the first regions in Asia where dinosaur fossils and dinosaur egg fossils were discovered, earning it the reputation as the "Hometown of Dinosaurs." The Dinosaur Fossils Site is located around the Erlian Salt Lake, about 9 kilometers from the city center. As far back as the late Cretaceous period, 70 million years ago, this area was dotted with lakes, had a hot and humid climate, and was covered with dense forests — an ideal habitat for dinosaurs to thrive. Over the course of 100 years starting from the 1890s, nearly ten countries including Russia, the United States, and Canada, along with paleontologists and geologists from China, have conducted seven large-scale excavations and research projects here. They have successively discovered more than ten types of dinosaur fossils, such as Plateosaurus, Alectrosaurus olseni, Hadrosaurus, and Ornithomimus, and unearthed a large number of relatively complete dinosaur skeletal fossils. Among them, the discovery of dinosaur egg fossils set the earliest record in China.