Wuxi 无锡Wúxī

About Wuxi

Wuxi spreads along the northern shore of Lake Tai, where the Yuantouzhu peninsula, a park since 1916, fills with cherry blossom in March and April and boats cross to the Sanshan islands. To the west the 88-metre bronze Grand Buddha at Ling Shan, completed in 1996, overlooks the lake, and Huishan Ancient Town packs more than a hundred ancestral halls beneath Huishan hill. Yixing, in the south, makes the purple-clay teapots prized by tea drinkers.

What to eat in Wuxi

• Wuxi spare ribs (无锡酱排骨)

Listed sites in Wuxi

43 listed sites are in Wuxi. These are the 29 rated 5A or 4A; see all 43 in the Jiangsu list.

• CCTV Wuxi Film and TV Base (Three Kingdoms & Water Margin Cities) 无锡影视基地 5A scenic area · on the map
  A film and television base built by China Central Television on the shore of Lake Tai from 1987, whose 5A part is made up of Three Kingdoms City and Water Margin City, full-scale sets of palaces, naval camps and old streets built for the 1990s television series of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin.
• Grand Buddha at Ling Shan 灵山大佛 5A scenic area
  A Buddhist complex on the north shore of Lake Tai, centred on an 88 m bronze standing Buddha, including its lotus base, consecrated in 1997 and assembled from about 2,000 cast panels weighing 725 tonnes in all.
• Huishan Ancient Town 惠山古镇 5A scenic area · National heritage site
  A cluster of ancestral halls and their gardens, 108 of them dating from the Tang dynasty to the Republican era, along two old streets at the eastern foot of Mount Hui, combined with neighbouring Xihui Park into one scenic area that also takes in Huishan Temple, Jichang Garden and the hilltop Longguang Pagoda.
• Yuantouzhu 鼋头渚 5A scenic area
  A rocky headland on the north shore of Lake Tai shaped like a turtle's head, developed from 1916 by Wuxi businessmen with lakeside villas and gardens and now a large park of wooded hills, pavilions, rock inscriptions and wide lake views.
• China Yixing Ceramics Museum 中国宜兴陶瓷博物馆 4A scenic area
  One of China's earliest specialist ceramics museums, at the foot of Xianhe Hill in Dingshu, Yixing's pottery town, and since 2013 also designated the China Zisha Museum.
• Chinese Decorative Stone Park 中华赏石园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A museum and garden of ornamental stones at the northern entrance of the China Wu Culture Expo Park in Hongshan, founded as the first stone garden of the View Stone Association of China.
• Chong'an Temple Quarter 崇安寺 4A scenic area · National heritage site · on the map
  The historic core of central Wuxi, named after a temple said to have been founded on the calligrapher Wang Xizhi's donated house in the 4th century and lost in the early 20th century; today it is a pedestrian shopping and food quarter around Erquan Square, known for old Wuxi restaurants and xiaolongbao.
• Dangkou Ancient Town 荡口古镇 4A scenic area · National heritage site · on the map
  A canal town in Ehu, east of Wuxi near the Suzhou border, that grew up from the early Ming dynasty as the home of the Hua clan, with Ming and Qing houses along the Beicang River; restoration began in 2009 and it is now run as a scenic area.
• Donglin Academy 东林书院 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  A Confucian academy in central Wuxi founded in 1111, where the Song scholar Yang Shi taught, and revived in the early 1600s by Gu Xiancheng and Gao Panlong, whose circle of scholar-officials criticised court politics and became known as the Donglin faction.
• Former Residence of Xue Fucheng 薛福成故居 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  The mansion that the late-Qing diplomat and reformer Xue Fucheng, envoy to Britain, France, Italy and Belgium, had built in Wuxi's old city between 1890 and 1894, known by its imperial name plaque as the Qinshidi, the 'Imperial Envoy's Residence'.
• Helü City Ruins and Museum 阖闾城遗址博物馆 4A scenic area · National heritage site · on the map
  A museum opened in 2014 beside the remains of Helü City, a walled settlement on the Wuxi–Changzhou border that archaeologists identified in 2008 as a capital of the Spring and Autumn state of Wu under King Helü in the late 6th century BC, although the location of his capital is still debated.
• Hongshan Site Museum (China Wu Culture Museum) 鸿山遗址博物馆 4A scenic area · National heritage site · on the map
  A site museum in Wuxi's Hongshan area built over a cemetery of tombs of Yue-state nobles, whose excavation was named one of China's top ten archaeological discoveries of 2004.
• Hongshan Taibo Scenic Area 鸿山泰伯景区 4A scenic area · on the map
  The burial place on Hongshan hill traditionally held to be that of Taibo, the legendary founder of the Wu state, laid out with Wu Culture Square in front and the tomb area behind.
• Jiangsu Education Commissioner's Office, Jiangyin 江苏学政衙署 4A scenic area · on the map
  The site of the provincial education commissioner's office, unusually based in Jiangyin rather than in a provincial capital: the commissioner for Suzhou and Songjiang moved here in 1614, and from 1725 until the examinations ended in 1906 the Jiangsu commissioner, responsible for eight prefectures and three departments, was based here.
• Jiangyin Riverside Fortress Scenic Area 江阴滨江要塞 4A scenic area · National heritage site · on the map
  Riverside parks on Huangshan hill and Ebizui (Goose Beak) Point just north of central Jiangyin, where the Yangtze narrows to little more than a kilometre and has been fortified since the late Ming.
• Li Garden (Liyuan) 蠡园 4A scenic area
  A lakeside garden on the north shore of Lihu Lake, created between 1927 and 1936 by the Wang family of Qingqi village and joined in 1952 with the neighbouring Yuzhuang garden of 1930 to form a public park.
• Longbeishan Forest Park 龙背山森林公园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A wooded hill park of about 5.5 km² on the southern edge of Yixing's city centre.
• Nanchan Temple, Wuxi 南禅寺 4A scenic area · on the map
  A Buddhist temple near the old Grand Canal just south of central Wuxi, first founded in the Southern Dynasties and restored in 1995, whose seven-storey octagonal Miaoguang Pagoda was named by the Song emperor Huizong in 1104 and rebuilt in the Ming dynasty.
• Qingming Bridge Historic District 清名桥古运河 4A scenic area
  A stretch of the old Grand Canal south of Wuxi's former city wall, lined with old waterside houses along Nanchang Street and Nanxiatang and crossed by the humpbacked Qingming Bridge, first built in the Ming dynasty and last rebuilt in 1869.
• Shanjuan Cave 善卷洞 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  A karst cave in Luoyan Hill near Zhangzhu, the first of Yixing's 'three wonders' among its caves, with upper, middle and lower chambers full of stalactites and a water cave where boats follow an underground river.
• Taozu Shengjing Scenic Area 陶祖圣境 4A scenic area · on the map
  A scenic area in the bamboo-covered hills of Huxu, south-west of Yixing, developed around Muli Cave, a karst cave whose route includes a stretch by boat.
• Tuanjiu Lake Scenic Area 团氿 4A scenic area · on the map
  A small round lake on the western edge of Yixing's city centre, one of the three 'jiu' lakes that give the city its waterside setting.
• Wuxi Film City (National Digital Film Industry Park) 无锡影都 4A scenic area · on the map
  A film-industry park on Lihu Avenue in southern Wuxi, built on the site of the Xuelang steel-rolling mill that closed in 2009, whose old factory sheds were converted into about 15 sound stages used by film and television crews.
• Wuxi Museum 无锡博物院 4A scenic area
  The city's main museum, opened in 2008 in a large steel-framed building beside Taihu Square, which merged the old Wuxi Museum with the city's revolutionary and science museums.
• Wuxi Plum Garden 梅园 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  A hillside garden west of Wuxi begun in 1912 by the industrialist Rong Desheng, who planted some 3,000 plum trees around his family villa; it is one of the best-known places in the Jiangnan region to see plum blossom in late winter and early spring.
• Wuxi Zoo and Taihu Amusement Park 无锡动物园·太湖欢乐园 4A scenic area · on the map
  A combined zoo and amusement park on the slopes of Mount Hui in western Wuxi, opened in 2010 when the city zoo moved here from Xihui Park, where it had been since 1956.
• Yangshan Peach Blossom Land 阳山桃花源 4A scenic area · on the map
  The peach-growing country around Yangshan town in western Wuxi, known across China for its juicy honey peaches, with orchards that blossom in spring and are picked in summer.
• Yixing Bamboo Sea 宜兴竹海 4A scenic area · on the map
  A forest park of bamboo-covered hills in the far south of Yixing, where Jiangsu meets Zhejiang and Anhui, long known as a 'sea of bamboo'.
• Yunhu Lake Scenic Area, Yixing 宜兴云湖 4A scenic area · on the map
  A scenic area around Yunhu Lake, the former Hengshan Reservoir in the hills of Xizhu in south-western Yixing, combining lakeside walks and a wetland park with a tea-culture zone that includes the Yangxian Tea Culture Museum.

All 43 listed sites in Wuxi

On the map

Open Wuxi on the illustrated map to see its outline, its places and listed sites together, and to add them to a trip.

Learn more

• Wikipedia
• Official website
• Wikipedia (Chinese)