Longli Ancient Town

Longli Ancient Town is located in the Jinping County (in the southeast of Guizhou province) and it is in the terrain of wide intermountain basin, surrounded by mountains and covered by green forests. Longli Ancient Town was built in 1386, and was an important military castle in Ming Dynasty. The whole layout and fork house in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) are preserved completely.

Featured streets of the town

The town has four city gate towers in four directions. There is a moat round the town and 72 ancient wells, 40 typical folk ancestral halls with different architecture styles in the town. Longli Ancient Town sits in west and east axis and has 20 streets. The streets in the town are all covered by cobbles with pattern on that. There is a typical layout of three main streets which are divided into six lanes and nine courtyards living areas. The streets and lanes are crisscrossed and buildings are in order. Longli Ancient Town is one of the best preserved ancient towns in southern plateau area of china.

Folk houses

The residents in Longli Ancient Town mostly came from south of China, like Anhui and Jiangxi provinces. Its architecture style is a previous “Hui” style. The folk houses are all built in excellent fir without a nail and a riveting. Woodcarving in the window is exquisite and the furniture in the house is simple and elegant.

Ancient wells

Longli Ancient Town is a military castle that can fight and farm. There are 72 ancient wells distributed in streets, lanes and courtyards, and you can image the prosperity of the town in that time. The wells not only solve the demand of everyday life locally, but in the term of military purpose, in the wartime, once the castle was besieged, and the troops in the town could have a steady water supply. Until now there are only 13 ancient wells in existence.

Number One Scholar Bridge

It was said that a famous poet named Wang Changling (690-756 A.D.) in Tang Dynasty who was banished in Longli Ancient Town. The bridge was built to commemorate him.

Ancient walls

Apart from ancient wells, ancient bridges and ancestral halls, the most outstanding one is ancient walls. Longli Ancient Town is surrounded by earth wall with cobbles framed. The wall’s circumference is 1,500 meters, four meters high and three meters wide. With centuries’ passed, the ancient wall is still standing here and it respects the vicissitudes of Longli Ancient Town.

Culture

In 1385, the first emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of Ming Dynasty sent forces to suppress rebel army, and his troop stationed Longli town. Culture in Longli Ancient Town emerges the central plains culture and minority nationality culture (such as Miao, Dong) in Guizhou. Now Han nationality culture is the mainstream. The residents in Longli Ancient Town mostly are the descendants of station troop in Ming Dynasty. The food, clothes and custom of residents in the town are still in the style of Han nationality. Traditional culture is kept and handed down by local people, such as “Dancing Dragon” and “Dragon Lantern”. The typical ones are “Dragon Players with Painted Face”, “Han Opera” and “Telling stories”, which are reputed as “Three Gems”. Longli Ancient Town is named as famous village of China history culture.