房山联合国教科文组织世界地质公园主要包括两个行政区部分，即北京市房山区的部分乡镇与河北省保定市涞水县、涞源县的部分乡镇。房山世界地质公园总面积953.95平方公里，于2006年被联合国教科文组织批准并授牌。是全球第一个首都城市世界地质公园。地质公园分为周口店北京人遗址科普区、石花洞溶洞群观光区、十渡岩溶峡谷综合旅游区、上方山——云居寺宗教文化游览区、圣莲山观光体验区、百花山——白草畔生态旅游区、野三坡综合旅游区、白石山休闲观光区8大园区。其中，以十渡、石花洞园区为代表的峰丛、溶洞群是中国北方岩溶地貌的典型代表；周口店古人类遗址、房山溶洞地质遗迹景观属国内稀有，世界罕见。
Fangshan UNESCO Global Geopark of China is in the Asia Pacific region, set on the border of southwestern Beijing and Hebei Province. The Geopark spreads across two provincial and municipal jurisdictions and three districts and counties, covering the Fangshan District of Beijing, Laishui County and Laiyuan County of Hebei Province. Sea-level elevation ranges from 26 to 2,161m.
Fangshan UNESCO Global Geopark holds very rich geological remains and has a complete series of rock formations developed over 3,500 million years. A wide variety of rocks can be found in the UNESCO Global Geopark, including sedimentary rocks formed in marine and terrestrial environment, metamorphic rocks created by regional dynamometamorphic processes, granite formed from solidified lava, different tectonic features shaped by crustal movements as well as ground and subterranean rivers, karst peak clusters and caves resulting from erosion processes. In the Geopark, the well-developed surface karst landforms and many caves are typical representatives of North China’s landscape and are of great interest. Tower-shaped mountains jut into the sky and make for grand scenery while the curtain-like mountain ranges extend for tens of miles in a seemingly inaccessible panorama so close to the urban center.
The discovery of “Peking Man” in the Geopark in 1929, one of our ancestors who lived in the area 700,000 years ago, astonished the whole world and the site has since been recognized as one of the birthplaces of humankind. These precious geological remains inspired China’s first geological survey more than 100 years ago and fostered its first generation of geologists. Even today, Fangshan UNESCO Global Geopark is a cradle of geology professionals, having nurtured some 50,000 geology students who spent their internship and lectures in the park, and thousands of whom have become geologists. The first Chinese Geology Dictionary was published here; moreover, many geological terms were officially named here. Bestowed with unparalleled geosites and heritage resources, Fangshan UNESCO Global Geopark is a veritable “geology encyclopedia”.
Its long human history has made for profound cultural heritage in the Geopark. The architecture, grottoes, stone inscriptions, relics and ancient tombs comprise abundant cultural, geological and tourism resources.
Fangshan UNESCO Global Geopark has improved its Science-Popularisation Education Facilities and made continuous efforts to develop its museum network. In the past years, Fangshan UNESCO Global Geopark rolled out a great variety of science-popularisation activities. They organised an annual Earth Day and Science Popularisation Week activities with different themes, along with patriotic education initiatives, Earth science-popularisation summer camps, and writing competitions. They also have ongoing cooperation with BNU Lianxiang Affiliated Secondary School to establish a science-popularisation programme which will be effective in the long term. Fangshan UNESCO Global Geopark is now the science-popularisation base for local schools, where students can share popular geoscience culture and knowledge with international exchange students. The “Popular Science Forum'' is an important approach and element of the school’s sustainable and effective youth science-popularisation education programme.
