Danuohei Village, located 30 kilometers southeast of Shilin County town, is one of the Ashima ethnic culture tourism ecology pilot villages in Shilin County, and was evaluated in the first batch of “cultural tourism villages in Kunming” in 2007.

Danuohei Village people have been building houses with stone on the mountains for generations. These stones stack layer by layer with deep and shallow colors, recording the signs of time and life changes of Sani people plainly or vicissitudinously. The unique stone landscape helps the village won reputation including “village solidified by stone” and “stone elf”, attracting painters, photographers and many travel fans to visit here all year round.

At present, there are altogether 5 agritainment households in Danuohei Village with the ability to provide food for more than 300 people at the same time. Ordinary households can also receive individual guests. In the evening after enjoying the unique traditional home-cooked food and sweet corn wine, you can visit the Yi people's homes, have a campfire party with local boys and girls, or just lie in the stone house quietly to watch the moon, count the stars, and listen to wild insects and breeze over trees.

Nuohei Village stone house: a project in Kunming Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage Catalogue

Nuohei Village stone house (traditional architecture) is a characteristic traditional residential architecture style in the Nuohei Village, Shilin Yi Autonomous County, Kunming. Nuohei Village is located in deep Gui Mountain surrounded by forests and mountains. Abundant stone mountains in Nuohei Village having stones with clear lines and layers provide Sani people with rich stone and wood resources for building houses. Thus hard-working Sani people created unique stone houses. Nuohei stone houses are mostly divided into two floors with three rooms on each. Beam, pillar, rafter, steps are all made of wood while gable wall, back wall, and enclosure walls are all made of stone, and floor is built by thin stone plates - presenting a unique, beautiful, practical, and firm shape. It gives an indestructible sense of security.

Nuohei Village is located in the karst landform development area facing the famous Laogui Mountain. Surrounding by mountains and trees, the center is concave with steep or flat areas. Villagers chisel flat ground and built the village by the mountain, having old trees and bamboos in the front and back of houses as decoration. There is also a big pond for fish farming and poultry drinking. Over 300 Sani households’ stone housed built by stone slabs and rocks scatter in this place. Such stone houses and roads with distinctive ethnic characteristics are unique nationwide. The whole Nuohei Village has reasonable layout, ingenious design, and great proportion of residential buildings. It is a natural village with unique characteristics of Sani people. Nuohei Village stone house has distinct ethnic and local characteristics with unique and typical architectural form, making it unique tourism resource with high aesthetic value and scientific research value. Protecting these Nuohei Village stone houses a developing stone houses has profound practical significance for tourism.

In 2005, Nuohei Village stone house (traditional architecture) was included in the first batch of Kunming Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List upon the approval of Kunming Municipal People's Government (K.Z.F.[2005] No. 57).

Nuohei Yi Traditional Cultural Preservation Area in Shilin Yi Autonomous County: Yunnan Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List

Nuohei Village is located about 25 kilometers east Stone Forest Scenic Area in Kunming. It is a typical village of Sani people. It was built in 1398 and has a history of 610 years. It was originally under jurisdiction of Luowen, Luliang, being the only way for ancient post road. The existing stone houses and roads are representative villages of ethnic minority houses with stone as building materials in karst region, Showing Sani people’s ecological relationship between living culture and the natural environment.

During the 133 years from the 21st year of Jiaqing era of Qing Dynasty (1816) to 1949, most land of Nuohei was owned by Lu Liang. During that time of fighting warlords and rampant bandits, Zixing led people to directly take local sources by using stones to build walls and rooms with thorny plants on the wall to prevent attack. For the relationship between history, folk customs and living environment, the unique stone architectural style of Nuohei could be continued, becoming one of the major villages to understand the architectural art and village culture of Sani people.

Nuohei Village has beautiful environment, long history and culture, and profound cultural heritage of minority ethnics with characteristics in text, spoken literature, residential architecture, embroidery crafts, and minority ethnic customs.

In 2005, “Nuohei Yi Traditional Cultural Preservation Area” was included in the first batch of Yunnan Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List upon the approval of Department of Culture of Yunnan Province.