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China's Most Typical Ancient City Remains Unfrequented
It is regarded as China's most typical and one of the best preserved ancient cities, but so far it has seen very few visitors.
This is Shangqiu, in central China's Henan Province, rebuilt in the year 1511 and well preserved since then.
"It was built strictly in accordance with the traditional Eight Diagrams Theory. The whole city is round on the outside and square inside, meaning harmony and luck," said Shang Qixing, an expert on traditional Chinese philosophy.
According to Shang, Shangqiu is unique in the world for still keeping its city walls, moat, circumvallation, ancient streets and old residential courtyards. There are also well-preserved ancient sites, including the 4,000-year-old site of China's first observatory.
"It is a typical traditional ancient Chinese city, with at least 20 well preserved courtyards build hundreds of years ago, " Shang said.
The city has altogether 93 streets -- 93 is a lucky number in the Eight Diagrams Theory -- and all the streets are strictly oriented in the south-north or east-west directions.
From the sky the city looks like a turtle shell, Shang said, adding that this makes it convenient for the city to drain during the rainy season.
However, one can see very few visitors either at its primitive city gates or in its age-old alleys.
"Because of the lack of publicity, few people either in China or abroad know such a marvelous ancient city," said Ma Jizhong, a local official. "We will do our best to introduce the ancient city to the world and make it an attractive tourism site," he said.
The city currently has about 40,000 residents. The local government has decided to move out most of the residents and all the industrial facilities to restore the ancient city's original look.
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