Discover Chongqing
Ciqikou Ancient Town
磁器口古镇
A Ming-Qing porcelain port on the Jialing River, now a dense grid of stone lanes full of teahouses, chilli-heavy snack stalls and a 1,000-year-old temple. Crowded, but the only surviving old quarter of its kind in the city.
The story
What makes this place special
Ciqikou sits on the west bank of the Jialing in Shapingba District, covering about 1.18 square kilometres. The name means 'porcelain port' and comes from the kilns that worked here in the Ming and Qing dynasties; it was earlier called Longyin Town and was nicknamed 'Little Chongqing' for the trade that passed through it. It was at its busiest at the end of the Qing, when it was a river port and market town shipping goods by water and overland. Bao Lun Temple, in the middle of the old town, is the oldest thing on site and far older than the street around it.
What you’ll discover
A grid of narrow, steep, flagstoned pedestrian lanes running down towards the river, now almost entirely shops, snack stalls and teahouses. The main street is the busiest and the least interesting. Bao Lun Temple climbs the hillside in the centre; Zhong's Compound and a handful of surviving courtyard houses show what the domestic architecture was. The local foods people queue for are chen mahua (twisted fried dough), maoxuewang and douban fish.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Leave the main street within five minutes. The side lanes downhill towards the river have the actual old houses, the quiet teahouses and no crowd at all.
- Bao Lun Temple is behind the shopfronts in the middle of the town and most visitors walk straight past the entrance. It is the only genuinely old building most people will see here.
- The mahua stalls with the longest queues are not the best ones, they are the ones nearest the gate. Walk further in.
- Go early morning — before about nine — or in the last hour of the evening. Between those the lanes are a slow-moving crush.
- The riverside at the bottom of the town is where locals sit with tea. It is a different place from the souvenir street at the top and almost nobody from a tour group gets there.
When to come
Early morning on a weekday, when the shutters are going up and the lanes are empty. Avoid weekends and holidays, when it is one of the most congested places in the city.
Getting around
Difficult. The town is built on a slope, the lanes are narrow, uneven flagstones with frequent steps, and there are no lifts or step-free routes. A wheelchair is not realistically usable beyond the flat top entrance area. A bad knee can manage if you stay near the upper entrance and accept not going down to the river, because the return is all uphill on stone.
Worth knowing before you go
The main street is wall-to-wall people; turn down the lanes towards the river or climb to Baolun Temple and the old Ciqikou Houjie, which most visitors never reach.
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