Avatar has raked in over $2.7 billion worldwide in the box office due to its groundbreaking technology and beautiful scenery.

What most people don't know is that much of Pandora's landscape was modeled after a real place – Zhangjiajie in the Hunan province of China.

The gorgeous quartz-sandstone pillars of Zhangjiajie (specifically, the 3,544 foot high "Southern Sky Column") became the basis for the floating "Hallelujah Mountains" of Pandora.

The Zhangjiajie government then went so far as to rename the "Southern Sky Column" to "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain." However, this proved to be a very unpopular decision and the government went on to deny ever renaming the pillar. "We only added a way to call the mountain. The previous name is not abolished," says a Zhangjiajie tourism official via Reuters.

At any rate, the real-life scenery in Zhangjiajie is breath-taking and we have the pictures to prove it.