Discover Hangzhou
Liangzhu Ancient City Archaeological Site Park
良渚古城遗址公园
The UNESCO-listed capital of a 5,000-year-old jade-working state on the Yangtze delta, with reconstructed city walls, water systems and rice paddies spread over a huge park. It is the hard evidence for China's claim to five millennia of civilisation, and almost no English itinerary includes it.
The story
What makes this place special
Liangzhu was a Neolithic culture of the lower Yangtze, roughly 3300 to 2300 BC, and this was its city: a 290-hectare walled area on the wetland plain north-west of Hangzhou, with six gates, a 30-hectare raised palace platform at Mojiaoshan, and a granary that may have held many tonnes of rice. Its real claim is engineering - a system of dam-like earthworks about 8km north of the city, built as flood defence, which is among the oldest large-scale water management anywhere. Liangzhu produced the finest jade of its era: about nine tenths of all known cong and bi jade tubes and discs of the period come from Liangzhu sites. The city walls were announced in 2007, a museum opened in 2008, and the site was inscribed by UNESCO on 6 July 2019.
What you’ll discover
An enormous landscaped archaeological park on the ground plan of the vanished city, laid out so you can read the earthworks: reconstructed sections of the clay walls and water gates, the Mojiaoshan palace platform, marked building foundations, and reed-and-wetland planting meant to suggest the original environment. Little of it is spectacular to look at - the structures are earth and the objects are not here - and the park is served by electric shuttles because the distances are large. The jades and the interpretation are in the separate Liangzhu Museum nearby.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Do the museum and the park, in that order, and do not do the park alone. The park is earthworks and grass; the museum holds the jade cong and the explanation, and without it the site is a field.
- Use the park shuttle. This is a city-sized site and walking it is a serious undertaking - the shuttle loop is how the park is designed to be seen.
- It is a long way out of Hangzhou, north-west of the city and nowhere near West Lake, and is a half to full day in its own right. Visitors routinely underestimate the travel.
- This is the sight for someone interested in archaeology and early states, not for someone wanting scenery or temples. It is the oldest urban site on any Chinese World Heritage list and that is its appeal.
- Check the booking requirements before travelling - the park has operated advance reservation and capacity limits.
When to come
Spring and autumn, in the morning. The park is open ground with limited shade and is hard going in Hangzhou's summer heat; it is at its best in clear dry weather when the earthwork outlines read clearly.
Getting around
Good for a large open site. The park is flat wetland plain with wide paved and boardwalk paths, ramps and electric shuttle buses between zones, so a wheelchair user can cover the main points, and the museum is a modern accessible building. The only climbs are the gentle ramps onto the reconstructed wall and platform sections. The real demand is distance, which the shuttle solves.
Worth knowing before you go
Pair it with the separate Liangzhu Museum in town, which explains the jades properly - the park alone is mostly landscape and earthworks. Use the internal shuttle; the site is several square kilometres.
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