Abstract: Yelang was the first state established by the ancestors of the minority ethnic groups in southwestern China. In ancient times, Yelang had been recorded in history as the name of a state, an ethnic group, a person, a prefecture, a county and a dam, etc. Because of the incident involving Prince Li Lin of the Tang Dynasty, Li Bai was exiled to Yelang, where he wrote more than 30 poems related to Yelang. Later, poets and scholars also wrote some works about Yelang, especially including many poems expressing sympathy for Li Bai's exile, and Yelang became a symbol of sorrow and frustration. Therefore, the Yelang image generated by Li Bai’s exile and works about Yelang has become a unique image in ancient Chinese poetry. Today, Yelang has evolved into a proper term with rich cultural connotations, becoming a symbol of the traditional culture of the ethnic minorities in southwestern China.