Coordinates: 43°13′N 27°28′E / 43.217°N 27.467°E / 43.217; 27.467

Varna Province (Bulgarian: Област Варна, Oblast Varna, former name Varna okrug) is a province in northeastern Bulgaria, onе of the 28 Bulgarian provinces. It comprises 12 municipalities (общини, obshtini, sing. общинa, obshtina) with a total population, as of December 2009, of 465,465 inhabitants. The province is named after its administrative centre - the city of Varna.

The province's territory is 3,819.5 square kilometres. It borders the Black Sea and covers parts of the hilly Danubian Plain (including parts of the Franga Plateau, South Dobruja, the Provadiya Plateau, Ludogorie, and the Avren Plateau), Eastern Stara Planina, the Varna—Devnya valley with the lakes (limans) of Varna and Beloslav, and the Kamchiya river valley. Other rivers include Provadiya, Devnya, and Batova, and the largest artificial lake is Tsonevo.

The Black Sea coast is hilly and verdant, mostly cliff, with a couple of rocky headlands (Cape Galata, Cape St. Athanasius), several expansive sand beaches, the largest of which, at the mouths of the rivers Kamchiya and Shkorpilovska, is nearly 13 km long and up to 200–300 m wide, and many small cove beaches. Agricultural lands cover 60% of the area, with fertile chernozem soils mostly in the north and west; forests—28.1% (with some of the oldest oak massives in the nation), mostly in the south; and urban zones—6.8%.

Coordinates: 43°13′N 27°55′E / 43.217°N 27.917°E / 43.217; 27.917

Varna (Bulgarian: Варна, pronounced [ˈvarnɐ]) is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and the third-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv with a population of 334,870 inhabitants as of February, 2011. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous province and Varna Municipality. It is the eleventh-largest city in the Balkans after Istanbul, Athens, Bucharest, Sofia, Belgrade, Thessaloniki, Zagreb, Skopje, Tirana and Plovdiv.

Commonly referred to as the marine (or summer) capital of Bulgaria, Varna is a major tourist destination, business and university centre, seaport, and headquarters of the Bulgarian Navy and merchant marine, as well as the centre of Varna Province and Bulgaria's North-Eastern planning region (NUTS II), comprising also the provinces of Dobrich, Shumen, and Targovishte. The Varna Airport with its mainly tourist 1,181,830 passangers (2011) rank third in Bulgaria after the Burgas and Sofia Airport.

The Stone Forest or Shilin (Chinese: 石林; pinyin: Shílín) is a notable set of limestone formations located in Shilin Yi Autonomous County, Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China, near Shilin approximately 120 kilometres (75 mi) from the provincial capital Kunming. The tall rocks seem to emanate from the ground in the manner of stalagmites, with many looking like petrified trees thereby creating the illusion of a forest made of stone. Since 2007, two parts of the site, the Naigu Stone Forest (乃古石林) and Suogeyi Village (所各邑村), have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites as part of the South China Karst. The site is classified as a AAAAA-class tourist site.

Shilin National Scenic Area (昆明市石林风景区) covers an area of 350 square kilometres (140 sq mi) and is divided into seven scenic areas as follows:

These formations, caused by the dissolution of limestone, are believed to be over 270 million years old and are a tourist attraction for both overseas and domestic tourists, with bus tours bringing tourists from Kunming. There are also a number of hotels in the area.