Lili Ancient Town
is located in the southeast of Wujiang, bordering Shanghai
to the east, Suzhou
in the north, and Jiaxing of Zhejiang Province to the south. It covers an area
of 61 square kilometers, among which the scope of protection occupies an area
of 0.69 square kilometers and the buildings constructed during the Republic of
China in Ming and Qing dynasties 97,000 square meters. It has a population of
68,000 (including the migrant population) and the original permanent population
of 12,000 (only about 4,000 nowadays). With Suzhou-Jiaxing-Hangzhou Expressway
and 227 Provincial Highway
in north-south direction intersecting with Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Anhui
Expressway and 318 National
Highway in east-west direction in the north, and Suzhou-Tongli First Class Highway
and Taipu River
across the town, Lili
Ancient Town
indeed enjoys quite convenient transportation.
Like many other ancient towns in the south of the Yangtze River, Lili Town
is characterized by the water town landscape featuring canals and small
bridges. The difference, however, is that Lili, honored as “a bright pearl of
the southern Yangtze River water town”, is
simple and elegant. The ancient towns in the South of the Yangtze River, though
not few, none of the rest of them resembles Lili Town
which still retains the original landscape of an old water town and stands
aloof from worldly strife.
Historically, Lili was a typical important commercial town in the
Yangtze River Delta, boasting a history of 891 years (by the end of 2018) since
the Southern Song Dynasty. Lili developed into a village in the Tang Dynasty,
and further evolved into two villages of the same size respectively in the east
and west in the Northern Song Dynasty. In 1,127 A.D. when Emperor Zhao of the
Song Dynasty moved to the South, the population of Lili boomed, making the
place a market. During the years from Chenghua to Hongzhi of the Ming Dynasty,
Lili became a huge town in Wujiang
County. At that time,
numerous high officials and renowned families from other different areas such
as Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei and Henan, etc., all came to settle and develop here,
and eight most famous family names—“Zhou, Chen, Li, Kuai, Ru, Xu and Cai” stood
out from the rest by the middle of Qing Dynasty.
To demonstrate their fame and dignity, rich families all managed to
build an alley, generally named “XX Family Alley” (an alley surnamed a certain
family name).These alleys with a certain name took up half the alleys of the
whole town in Lili. Over the past six and seven hundreds of years, the whole
town retains 115 alleys up to now, among which there are 90 dark alleys with 11
of them exceeding 100 meters, double alleys with a bright one and a dark one in
parallel or two dark ones in parallel, child-mother alleys and also alleys with
another alley inside, shaped like three forks in the road. With so many various
alleys, Lily Ancient Town
can be called the best Jiangnan ancient town.
Address: Lili Town, Wujiang District, Suzhou
Ticket Price: 60 RMB for joint ticket
Opening hours: 9:00a.m.-16:30p.m.
