The Ancient City Wall in Pingyao

The ancient city of Pingyao in north China's Shanxi Province, which has retained the look and feel of ancient times, is an "outstanding city model of the Han nationality in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties", according to UNESCO.
For its well-preserved city wall and streets, stores, temples and residential housing built in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the city was listed as a World Cultural Heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)in 1997.

"It shows a lively picture of the cultural, social, economic and religious life of the Han people about 600 to 100 years ago," said the report.

Located in the central part of Shanxi, the city has a history of over 4,000 years. It is said that Yao, a legendary monarch in ancient China had won his title in Pingyao some 4,100 years ago.

A legend goes that the city wall of Pingyao was built as early as 827 B.C. to 782 B.C. when Ji Jing, a king of the Western Zhou Dynasty (c.1100 B.C.- c.771 B.C.), sent his troops here to guard the frontier of Western Zhou's territory.

The city wall of today's Pingyao, one of the oldest and largestcounty walls in China, was rebuilt in 1370 on the basis of the oldcity wall. With a circumference of 6,200 meters, the city wall is six to ten meters high and the wall top is three to six meters wide. Moreover, the city wall has six city gates and four turrets surrounded by a moat four meters deep and four meters wide.

The design of the ancient city is strictly according to China'straditional archaeological thoughts.

The city is square and upright and all streets cross each otherhorizontally and vertically. A main street from north to south divides the town into two parts with the city tower located in thecenter.

Major constructions are distributed orderly in the left and right parts of the city with the town god's temple in the left city corresponding to the county governmental office in the right,the Confucian temple in the left corresponding to the Guandi Temple worshipping Guan Yu, deified god of war, in the right, and the Qingxu Temple of Taoism in the left corresponding to Buddhist temples in the right.

The ancient city is also called the city of the turtle with thesouthern gate as the head, the northern gate as the tail, the fourgates in the west and east as the four legs and the four major streets, eight small streets and 72 lanes as designs on the back of the turtle. In ancient China, a turtle was the symbol of longevity and peace.

During the 1800-1900 period, Pingyao had been the financial center of China, when 22 of China's 51 firms for money exchange and transfer took Pingyao as their headquarters. The main street of the city, currently a 440-meter-long street in the Ming and Qing styles, had been called the Wall Street of Asia in the 19th century.

At that time, Pingyao was honored with the name of "Little Beijing".

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, scholars were superior to all other walks of life and merchants were taken as one of the lowest social classes. However, the Pingyao people took a completely different view. According to them, success in business was taken as their pride, while scholars were ranked as even inferior to peasants and soldiers.

After hundreds of years, when most towns and counties were destroyed by wars and modern construction, the ancient city still stands as a witness of history

The Pingyao Ancient City was built in the year of Hongwu 3nd (1370 AD), Ming Dynasty with a girth of 6.4km as the early built and the largest scale ancient cities well preserved in Shanxi Province. Though it had been repaired in Ming and Qing dynasty, it has kept the original look of the early Ming dynasty. The whole city takes a quadrate shape with walls of 12 meters high. The city walls were built by laying rocky bricks and have a moat of 4 meters deep and 4 meters wide surrounding them to strengthen the defense of the city. It is said that there are 3000 battlements and 72 watchtowers on the top of the walls according to the number of disciples and elitist students of Confucius.

The city wall of Pingyao has two gates on each side of the east and the west. The city gate stands out the wall and has outer and inner gates forming an urn look. As there are 6 "urns", people think that the south gate and the north one are like the head and the tail of a tortoise, and the four gates of the east gate and the west are like its four feet. For the south gate, the inner gate and the outer one are connected straightly like the tortoise's exserted head. And there are 2 wells out of the south gate which provide people with the imagination of the eyes of the tortoise. The way of the north gate is crooked and perfects the pattern of the whole city as a tortoise crawling forward. The city walls, streets, houses, shops, temples etc. in this city have all been standing still as if they were in the past. The original architectural style and featuresviews have never been changed to this day. In early time there were 94 watchtowers on the wall, towers were built on the top of the gate and even the four corners have corner towers. But now most of these buildings have been destroyed except the city wall. And almost all the ancient buildings inside the town and in the outskirts have been kept in good conditions, which have contributed to the historical wealth of the Pingyao Ancient City.

The Pingyao Ancient City is one of the four ancient cities well preserved in China and it was evaluated as the most outstanding heritage in the world by UNESCO in December 3 rd, 1997. The heritage council of UNESCO reported that the Pingyao Ancient City was a masterpiece of the city architecture done by the Chinese Han nationality. The city has kept all the ethical characters and has displayed an unusual complete picture in the development of the histories of culture, society, economy and religion in China. We are very proud to recommend this city to you and look forward to your contact for visiting this beautiful place.