Discover Pingyao
Ming-Qing Street
明清街
Pingyao's main commercial spine, lined with the shopfronts, banks and guildhalls of the city's banking heyday, still in their original low two-storey form. Free to walk, and the best place to understand the town's commercial geography.
The story
What makes this place special
Ming-Qing Street is South Street, the main north-south commercial axis of the walled town, lined with the surviving Ming and Qing shopfronts of Pingyao's merchant era - the banks, pawnshops, dye works and dry-goods stores that made the town rich. The buildings are genuine; the trade in them is now almost entirely tourist. The Market Tower, the tallest building inside the walls, stands over the street at its midpoint.
What you’ll discover
A stone-paved street of two-storey timber-fronted shops with hanging signboards and carved shutters, running from the Market Tower south towards the gate, with several of the combined-ticket museums opening directly off it. By day it sells beef, vinegar, lacquerware and souvenirs; at night it is lit with red lanterns and is the town's dining and drinking street. The side lanes off it are where ordinary Pingyao still lives.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Walk it twice: once in the morning when the shops are opening and the street is quiet enough to see the buildings, and once after dark for the atmosphere. They are different streets.
- Get off it. One lane east or west and the crowds vanish, the buildings are unrestored, and residents are going about their day - that is where Pingyao is still a town rather than a product.
- Pingyao beef and Shanxi aged vinegar are the two local products actually worth buying, but buy them in an ordinary shop off the main street, not from the branded tourist outlets on it.
- The Market Tower can be climbed and gives the best view of the street grid from inside the walls - better value than most of the small museums.
- Beef restaurants on this street mark up heavily. The noodle shops in the lanes north of the tower are where to eat.
- Electric carts tout along the street constantly; they are useful for getting to a far gate with luggage and a waste of money otherwise.
When to come
Early morning for the architecture and the light down the street, and after dark for the lanterns and the food. Spring and autumn.
Getting around
Pedestrianised and broadly level, but the paving is old uneven stone with dips and gutter channels that catch small wheels, and the street gets very crowded in the evening. A wheelchair can do it with a pusher; a bad knee is fine but should watch the uneven setts. Shops all have a step up at the door. Benches are scarce, so plan rest stops around cafes.
Worth knowing before you go
Walk it early, before 08:00: the whole street is yours, the shutters are up and the light down the lane is far better than in the tour-group hours.
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