Jiaxing 嘉兴Jiāxīng

About Jiaxing

Jiaxing spreads across the flat, canal-laced plain between Hangzhou and Shanghai, with the Grand Canal running through it. Wuzhen, where the novelist Mao Dun was born, and Xitang, with its long covered walkways beside the water, are its best-known water towns. In the city, the Chinese Communist Party's first congress ended on a boat on South Lake in 1921, and at Yanguan on the Qiantang estuary crowds gather each autumn to watch the tidal bore surge upriver.

What to eat in Jiaxing

• Jiaxing zongzi (嘉兴粽子)

Featured places in Jiaxing

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  Wuzhen Water Town 乌镇

  Stone bridges and lantern-lit canals in a water town that's best after dark

  Best time: Mar–May, Sep–Nov · Time needed: 1 day, ideally with an overnight · 5A scenic area · National heritage site

Listed sites in Jiaxing

23 sites in Jiaxing are on the official lists. Those with a page of their own link to it; the rest open as cards on the map.

• South Lake (Nanhu), Jiaxing 南湖 5A scenic area · National heritage site
  Jiaxing's best-known lake, about half a square kilometre on the south side of the old city, has a garden island reached by boat whose Yanyu (Misty Rain) Tower, last rebuilt in 1918, so pleased the Qianlong Emperor that he had a copy built at his summer resort in Chengde.
• Xitang Water Town 西塘 5A scenic area
  A canal town about 10 km north of Jiashan, on the old border between the Wu and Yue states, whose preserved centre of Ming and Qing houses is threaded by nine waterways crossed by 27 stone bridges.
• East Lake, Pinghu 平湖东湖 4A scenic area · on the map
  A lake on the edge of central Pinghu whose shores and islands form a 4A scenic area.
• Gefeisong Chocolate Town 歌斐颂巧克力小镇 4A scenic area · on the map
  A chocolate factory and themed visitor park in Dayun town, opened in 2014 by the Gefeisong chocolate company.
• Jiashan Library and Museum 嘉善图博中心 4A scenic area · on the map
  A civic cultural complex in Jiashan town, opened in 2019, that pairs the five-storey county library with the four-storey Jiashan Museum in buildings whose kiln-like form recalls the county's brick and tile making.
• Meihuazhou 梅花洲 4A scenic area · on the map
  A rural water-village scenic area in Fengqiao town, south-east of Jiaxing, named for the way its streams split the land into five petal-shaped islands like a plum blossom.
• Nanbei Lake 南北湖 4A scenic area · on the map
  A lagoon of about 1.2 km² near Ganpu on the Hangzhou Bay coast, divided into a south and a north lake by an old causeway and enclosed by wooded hills on three sides, with the sea to the south.
• Qi Garden 绮园 4A scenic area · National heritage site · on the map
  A private garden in the centre of Haiyan laid out in 1871 by the merchant Feng Zuanzhai, who reused the rocks of two ruined Ming gardens; the garden historian Chen Congzhou ranked it first among the gardens of Zhejiang.
• Xiangjiadang Lake 湘家荡 4A scenic area · on the map
  A lake of about 2,000 mu (1.3 km²) on the north-eastern edge of Jiaxing, whose shoreline park forms the 4A scenic area.
• Yanguan Tide-Watching Area 盐官观潮 4A scenic area · National heritage site
  Yanguan, the old county seat of Haining on the north bank of the Qiantang River, is the classic place to watch the river's tidal bore, which arrives here as a single long wave, with the largest tides around the 18th day of the eighth lunar month.
• Yunlanwan Hot Spring 云澜湾温泉 4A scenic area · on the map
  A hot-spring resort built in the 2010s in Dayun town, part of the Dayun provincial tourist resort area, using water drawn from more than 2,000 m underground.
• Anguo Temple Sutra Pillars 安国寺经幢 National heritage site
  Three octagonal stone pillars inscribed with a Buddhist dharani sutra, carved in 842, 844 and 865, are the chief survivors of Anguo Temple, founded in 713, which declined after 1894 and was cleared in 1978.
• Chen Gelao Mansion 陈阁老宅 National heritage site
  The mansion of the Chen clan of Haining, greatly enlarged by Chen Yuanlong (1652–1736), a minister under the Kangxi Emperor who became a grand secretary under Yongzheng; 'gelao', a name for grand secretaries, gives the house its name.
• Former Residence of Shen Junru 沈钧儒故居 National heritage site
  The Jiaxing family house of Shen Junru (1875–1963), a lawyer and politician who was one of the 'Seven Gentlemen' arrested in 1936 for campaigning for resistance to Japan, later led the China Democratic League and was the first President of the Supreme People's Court from 1949.
• Huili Temple 惠力寺 National heritage site
  A Buddhist temple on the southern slope of Xishan (Ziwei Hill) in central Haining, founded in the Eastern Jin period in about 373–375 and given its present name in 1009.
• Jiaxing Catholic Church and Vincent Abbey 嘉兴天主堂 National heritage site
  A brick church in simplified Gothic style with twin bell towers 37 m high, built in 1917–30 to the design of the Italian Vincentian priest Angelo-Joseph Asinelli and for long the tallest building in Jiaxing.
• Luojiajiao Site Park 罗家角遗址 National heritage site · on the map
  An early Majiabang-culture settlement of about 12 ha beside the old course of the Grand Canal at Shimen, where excavations in 1979–80 found four Neolithic layers and 794 objects, with charred reeds dated to about 7,000 years ago.
• Majiabang Site and Museum 马家浜遗址 National heritage site · on the map
  The site, found in 1959 where three streams meet south-west of Jiaxing, gave its name to the Majiabang culture, the Neolithic farming culture of the plain north of Hangzhou Bay; the settlement here dates from about 6000 to 5500 years ago and yielded over thirty burials, a house and pottery, stone, jade and bone objects.
• Mo's Manor 莫氏庄园 National heritage site · on the map
  A late-Qing merchant family house in the old centre of Pinghu, built in 1897–1900 and home to three generations of the Mo family.
• Tomb of Wu Zhen and Plum Blossom Hermitage 吴镇墓 National heritage site · on the map
  The tomb of Wu Zhen (1280–1354), one of the Four Masters of Yuan painting, best known for landscapes, bamboo and pictures of fishermen, lies on a spot he chose himself in his home town of Weitang.
• Wangdian Soviet-Style Granaries 王店粮仓群 National heritage site
  A group of fourteen cylindrical concrete grain silos with six-sided tiled roofs, built in the 1950s with Soviet advice beside the Changshui canal in Wangdian town to store grain for the local rice mill.
• Zhapu Forts 乍浦炮台 National heritage site · on the map
  Two Qing coastal batteries at Zhapu on the north shore of Hangzhou Bay, part of the Qing coastal defences and a reminder of the First Opium War, when British forces captured Zhapu in 1842.
• Zicheng Citadel Site Park 嘉兴子城 National heritage site · on the map
  The inner citadel of old Jiaxing, founded in 231, held the offices of the county and later the prefecture for centuries and served as the Taiping Prince Ting's headquarters; after 1912 it became barracks and then a hospital.

On the map

Open Jiaxing 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)