Discover Suzhou
Jinji Lake
金鸡湖
The giant lake at the centre of Suzhou Industrial Park, ringed by a free open park, the ring-shaped 'Gate of the Orient' tower and a nightly music fountain. It is the modern counterweight to the old city and a free, uncrowded evening.
The story
What makes this place special
Jinji Lake is the centrepiece of Suzhou Industrial Park, the planned district east of the old city developed from the 1990s as a joint venture with Singapore. The lake is roughly the size of West Lake and was landscaped as the park's public realm. Its one piece of real history is Ligong Causeway: in the Guangxu period the magistrate Li Chaoqiong organised famine relief by employing local people to build an embankment across the lake, and the causeway is named after him. Everything else here is new, and that is the point - it is the counterweight to the gardens, showing the city Suzhou has become.
What you’ll discover
A lakeside promenade about 14km round, divided into functional zones - convention, shopping, dining, city views and a central water feature. On the west bank stands the Gate of the Orient, a twin-tower skyscraper whose two halves join at the top into an arch, about 300 metres high with the opening some 246 metres tall, which locals nickname the trousers. Ligong Causeway crosses the lake as a street of restaurants and bars in a Jiangnan-pastiche style. In the evening there is a musical fountain in the central water zone and a light show on the Gate of the Orient and the surrounding towers.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Come after dark and not before. By day this is an office district with a large lake; at night the light shows on the towers, the fountain and the lit causeway are the attraction, and it is free.
- Walking the whole 14km shore is a mistake. Pick the western bank for the skyline and the Gate of the Orient, or Ligong Causeway for eating, and use the metro - Line 1 runs along the lake with several stations on the shore.
- Check the fountain and light-show times at the lakeside screens or on the park's account; they run only at set times in the evening and are suspended in bad weather.
- This is the useful contrast to a day of gardens. Suzhou sells itself as classical, and spending an evening here makes clear it is also one of the largest manufacturing economies in the world.
- Ligong Causeway is where the expatriate and local bar scene is, and it is where to go if you want a drink after a day in the old city.
When to come
Evening, for the lighting and the fountain. Spring and autumn for walking the shore; the promenade is exposed and hot in summer and windy in winter.
Getting around
Excellent. This is a 1990s planned district, so the whole lakeside is wide level paved promenade with ramps, tactile paving, accessible toilets, lifts at the metro stations and benches, and the viewing points for the towers and the fountain are all step-free. Probably the most wheelchair-friendly sight in Suzhou. Ligong Causeway's restaurant frontages mostly have level or ramped entry.
Worth knowing before you go
Do the classic local circuit: Suzhou Center mall, the music fountain, then the 1.4 km Ligongdi causeway and Moonlight Wharf for the skyline view across the water.
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