Atlas of China
Taizhou 泰州Tàizhōu
Island fields in the marshes, a boat festival and crab-roe soup dumplings
About Taizhou
Taizhou spreads north from the Yangtze into flat, watery country of canals and fish ponds. Around a thousand boats crowd Qinhu Lake in Jiangyan each Qingming for the Qintong Boat Festival, and at Xinghua farmers have worked the duotian, small island fields ringed by water, for more than 600 years. In the city the old moat of the Fengcheng River passes a memorial garden to Mei Lanfang, the Peking opera star whose family came from Taizhou.
What to eat in Taizhou
- Huangqiao sesame cake (黄桥烧饼)
- Crab-roe soup dumplings (蟹黄汤包)
Listed sites in Taizhou
18 sites in Taizhou are on the official lists. Those with a page of their own link to it; the rest open as cards on the map.
- Qinhu Lake National Wetland Park 溱湖 5A scenic area · on the map
Qinhu was Jiangsu's first national wetland park and China's second, a lake and marshland in the Lixiahe lowlands where wetland covers most of the park and hundreds of wild plant and animal species have been recorded, Père David's deer among them. - Daohe Historic Quarter 稻河 4A scenic area · on the map
Just outside Taizhou's old north gate, the Daohe quarter is the city's main surviving block of old houses, lining the Daohe and Caohe rivers with Hanxi Street on one bank and five parallel lanes on the other. - Fengcheng River Scenic Area 凤城河 4A scenic area · on the map
The Fengcheng River is the old moat that rings Taizhou's historic centre, landscaped with waterside parks and walks and plied by sightseeing boats. - Guluotang Old Street Quarter 古罗塘 4A scenic area · on the map
Guluotang is a restored and partly rebuilt old-street quarter along North Street in the centre of Jiangyan. - Huangqiao Campaign Memorial Hall 新四军黄桥战役纪念馆 4A scenic area · National heritage site · on the map
In October 1940 the Communist-led New Fourth Army under Chen Yi and Su Yu defeated the Nationalist 89th Army of Jiangsu governor Han Deqin around Huangqiao, a clash within the wartime alliance that secured the Communists a base in central Jiangsu. - Kou'an Carved Mansion 口岸雕花楼 4A scenic area · on the map
The Diaohualou ('carved building') is a merchant's mansion of the Qing and early Republican periods in the old town of Kou'an near the Yangtze, with two-storey main buildings and side wings around a square courtyard richly decorated with wood, brick and stone carving. - Lizhong Water Forest 李中水上森林 4A scenic area · on the map
The Lizhong Water Forest is a man-made wetland forest begun in the early 1980s, when villagers planted pond cypress and dawn redwood on raised plots in waste marshland north-west of Xinghua. - Qintong Ancient Town 溱潼古镇 4A scenic area · on the map
Qintong is a Ming- and Qing-era water town at the meeting of the Jiangxing and Taidong rivers, listed as one of China's historic and cultural towns in 2005. - Qiuxue Lake Eco-Park 秋雪湖 4A scenic area · on the map
A large eco-park of lakes, wetlands and farmland on the north-eastern edge of Taizhou's main urban area, combining modern farming with waterside walks and leisure attractions. - Shagou Ancient Town 沙沟古镇 4A scenic area · on the map
Shagou is an old water town in the far north-west of Xinghua, where five counties meet, long a market centre for the fish and rice of the Lixiahe plain and named a China Historic and Cultural Town in 2010. - Zheng Banqiao and Fan Zhongyan Memorial Hall 郑板桥·范仲淹纪念馆 4A scenic area · on the map
This memorial museum in Xinghua's old town honours two men tied to the city: the painter and calligrapher Zheng Banqiao (Zheng Xie, 1693–1766), born in Xinghua and one of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, known for his ink orchids, bamboo and rocks, and the Song statesman Fan Zhongyan, who served as Xinghua's magistrate in the 1020s and led the building of sea dykes along this coast. - Rishe Garden (Qiao Garden) 日涉园 National heritage site
Built in 1574 for the Ming official Chen Yingfang and later called Qiao Garden after a Qing salt commissioner who owned it, Rishe Garden is regarded as the oldest surviving classical garden in northern Jiangsu. - Shangchizhai Pharmacy 上池斋药店 National heritage site
Shangchizhai was founded in the Kangxi–Yongzheng period by Fang Shichuan of Yangzhou and named after a line in Sima Qian's biography of the physician Bian Que; its shop buildings date from the Qing and Republican periods. - Taizhou City God Temple 泰州城隍庙 National heritage site · on the map
Taizhou's City God Temple was founded in the Tang, rebuilt in 1439 and restored in 1853, and is now used as a Taoist temple. - Tianmushan Site 天目山遗址 National heritage site · on the map
The Tianmushan site is the remains of a walled settlement of the Western Zhou, flourishing about 3,100 years ago where the New Tongyang Canal meets the Jiangqin River on Jiangyan's northern edge. - Xinghua Duotian Raised Fields 兴化垛田 National heritage site · on the map
Duotian are small island fields, each ringed by water, that farmers in the low-lying Lixiahe marshes have worked for more than 600 years. - Xuezheng Examination Hall 学政试院 National heritage site
From the Kangxi era until the abolition of the imperial examinations, candidates from the counties of Yangzhou prefecture sat the licentiate examination (yuanshi), set by the Jiangsu education commissioner, in this hall; it is the only fairly complete compound of its kind left in Jiangsu.
On the map
Open Taizhou on the illustrated map to see its outline, its places and listed sites together, and to add them to a trip.
Open Taizhou on the map