Avatar: Zhangjiajie's Floating Mountains

Pandora was never filmed on a mountain. Principal photography began in 2007, and the motion-capture work took place at the Hughes Aircraft stage in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, a district that had been Hughes Aircraft's headquarters from 1941 to 1985. Cameron put the finished film at about 60% computer-generated elements and 40% live action. So the floating mountains on screen were assembled in software, and China's real peaks were only a reference. That is why this route begins in a Los Angeles neighbourhood before it moves to Hunan.

Location precision: The film's capture stage is not open to visitors; the pin marks the Playa Vista neighbourhood.

Wulingyuan in Hunan is noted for more than 3,000 quartzite sandstone pillars and peaks, many over 200 metres high. They look like karst but are the result of long physical erosion rather than chemical dissolution. UNESCO inscribed the site in 1992. The Avatar team said they drew inspiration for the floating rocks from mountains around the world, but mainly from Guilin, Huangshan and Zhangjiajie. Wulingyuan is the Zhangjiajie part of that list, and two later stops sit inside it.

Location precision: Wulingyuan is a large scenic area; the pin marks its centre, not a single viewpoint.

Visitor guidance: Wulingyuan is a protected scenic area with several entrances; check the current park rules before you go.

Tianzi Mountain is credited with inspiring the Pandora mountainscape in the film. It is easy to see why: mainly after it rains, the mountains are covered in a sea of fog, so pillars appear to hang in the air. Kunlun Peak, the highest pillar, reaches 1,262.5 metres. The name comes from the Tujia farmer Xiang Dakun, who called himself son of Heaven.

Location precision: The inspiration is stated for the mountain as a whole, not for a single viewpoint, and rests on one source; the pin marks the mountain.

Visitor guidance: Fog is most likely after rain.

Cameron himself pointed elsewhere. At the Beijing premiere on 23 December 2009 he said the Hallelujah Mountains drew on Huangshan, and he is recorded citing it as an influence on the film's fictional world. Hunan netizens objected and said the prototype was in Zhangjiajie. Huangshan's best-known peak, Lotus Peak, stands 1,864 metres high, and the range formed about 100 million years ago. The two claims are not exclusive, since the team named several sources.

Location precision: No single Huangshan peak is named as the model; the pin marks the mountain range.

Visitor guidance: Huangshan is a large mountain scenic area in Anhui; plan the climb or cable cars locally.

On Pandora, unobtanium in the ground causes chunks of land to be ripped up and left floating. In December 2008 a Hollywood CG designer visited Wulingyuan to collect material for the crew, and Chinese accounts name the pillar then called the Southern Sky Column as the model for the film's floating mountain. On 25 January 2010 the local authorities renamed it Avatar Hallelujah Mountain. It stands about 150 metres high, and the renaming drew criticism online as an act of excessive deference to foreign culture.

Location precision: The floating mountains exist only in the film; the pin marks the real pillar that stands in for them.

Visitor guidance: Inside the Wulingyuan scenic area; check current park rules before you go.

Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida is a long way from Hunan, but the Pandora land is the only place where the film's world can be walked through. It opened on 27 May 2017 and cost half a billion dollars. It is set after the movies, with Pandora turned into a conservation park. In Avatar Flight of Passage, a 3D flying simulator, guests fly on a mountain banshee over the landscape of Pandora.

Visitor guidance: Inside Disney's Animal Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista, Florida.