Pingyao: Inside One of China’s Best-Preserved Walled Cities
Behind about six kilometres of Ming wall in Shanxi, a city of some 4,000 old dwellings and shops was once the banking capital of China. It is still lived in, and has film and photography festivals of its own.
Pingyao lies in the middle of Shanxi province, about 100 kilometres south of the provincial capital, Taiyuan. Most Chinese cities lost their walls and their old streets in the twentieth century. Pingyao kept both. UNESCO listed it in December 1997 as the Ancient City of Ping Yao, together with Shuanglin Temple and Zhenguo Temple outside the walls.
The walls
The city walls were reinforced with brick in 1370, early in the Ming dynasty, on an older earthen rampart. They are about twelve metres high and a little over six kilometres round, with six fortified gates and 72 watchtowers. Visitors can walk on top of them. Inside, the plan is that of a traditional Chinese county town, with four main streets, eight smaller ones and dozens of lanes, and a shape said to resemble a tortoise.
The banking city
Some 4,000 traditional dwellings and shops of the Ming and Qing dynasties survive within the walls. Many of them were built on the profits of finance. In the nineteenth century the merchants of Shanxi developed a system of remittance houses, which allowed money to be transferred across the empire by paper draft. The first and largest of them, Rishengchang, had its head office in Pingyao. At its height, under the late Qing, it handled almost half of China’s silver trade, and it went bankrupt in 1914. The premises are now a museum.
What to see
The main streets are lined with the courtyard houses of the banking families, several of them museums and many of them inns. Outside the walls, the two temples included in the World Heritage listing repay the short drive. Shuanglin Temple, about six kilometres south-west of the city, is known for more than 2,000 painted clay sculptures of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Zhenguo Temple, to the north-east, has the Wanfo Hall, built in 963 and one of the oldest timber halls in China.
The old city is home to more than 20,000 people, and it is at its best in the early morning and the evening, when the tour groups have gone and residents take back the streets.
The festivals
Pingyao has two festivals with an international reputation. The Pingyao International Photography Festival has been held in autumn, with exhibitions in old factories, temples and courtyards. The Pingyao International Film Festival, first held in October 2017, was founded by the director Jia Zhangke, who is from Shanxi.
For travellers
Pingyao has a station on the high-speed line between Taiyuan and Xi’an, which makes it a natural stop between Beijing and Xi’an. Stay inside the walls, in a courtyard inn, for at least one night. A day and a half is enough for the town and the temples. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons, and the national holidays in early May and early October are best avoided.