Discover Suzhou
Zhouzhuang Water Town
周庄古镇
The most famous of the Jiangnan canal towns, built on islands with the 500-year-old Double Bridge that a Chen Yifei painting made internationally famous. It is busy, but the stone-bridge-and-whitewashed-wall image of China starts here.
The story
What makes this place special
The settlement goes back to the Spring and Autumn period, when it was called Zhenfengli, and took its present name in 1086 after Zhou Digong donated the land to Quanfu Temple. Its wealth is tied to Shen Wansan, the legendary early-Ming merchant of the Jiangnan, whose descendants built Shenting House in 1742 - over 2,000 square metres and more than a hundred rooms in three linked sections, with its own water gate and wharf. Zhangting House, begun by descendants of Xu Kui between 1436 and 1449 and later bought by the Zhang family, has over seventy rooms. Zhouzhuang's modern fame dates precisely to 1984, when the painter Chen Yifei exhibited 'Memory of Hometown', a painting of its Double Bridges, in New York - that picture is why the town became a tourist destination at all.
What you’ll discover
A grid of narrow canals with stone-paved lanes along them, crossed by old stone bridges, with whitewashed and grey-tiled houses right down to the water. The set pieces are the Double Bridges in the north-east - Shide and Yongan bridges, built in the Wanli era, meeting at right angles so that together they look like an old Chinese key, which is the composition Chen Yifei painted - plus the two big merchant houses, Milou Tower near Zhenfeng Bridge, and Chengxu Temple on Zhongshi Street. Hand-poled boats work the canals with the boatwomen singing.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Stay the night, or do not bother. From about 9am to 5pm Zhouzhuang is the most intensely commercialised water town in the Yangtze delta and the lanes are nose to tail; before 8am and after dark, with the lanterns on and the day-trippers gone, it is genuinely beautiful. The overnight is the entire difference between the two Zhouzhuangs people describe.
- Go and stand where Chen Yifei stood. The Double Bridges photograph works from one specific angle on the north bank, and the painting is the reason the town is on your itinerary.
- Walk away from the main axis. The through-route from the gate to the bridges is wall-to-wall shops; two lanes back the town is still inhabited, with laundry, cats and old people at doorways.
- If you want one water town and want it quieter, choose Tongli instead - it is closer to Suzhou, less packaged and has a UNESCO-listed garden; Zhouzhuang is actually in Kunshan, closer to Shanghai, and takes the Shanghai coach traffic.
- Buy the boat ride only if you take it from a side canal. The main-canal boats queue bumper to bumper; the quieter stretches give you the view the boat is for.
When to come
Before 8am or after 7pm - the town is a different place outside day-trip hours. Spring and autumn; misty mornings suit the canals. Avoid weekends and the May and October holidays absolutely.
Getting around
Difficult. The lanes are flat but narrow worn flagstone, and every canal crossing is a stepped stone humpback bridge with no ramp, so moving around the town in a wheelchair means being lifted repeatedly or being confined to one bank. The merchant houses have raised sills, internal steps and stairs to upper floors. Boats require a step down into a low hull. A bad knee can manage with frequent stops; a wheelchair user needs a strong companion and should expect a partial visit.
Worth knowing before you go
If you have time for only one water town from Suzhou, Tongli is easier to reach by metro and less crowded; choose Zhouzhuang for the Double Bridge specifically.
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