Wujiang District 吴江区

Setting and landscape

Water covers 314.44 square kilometres of the district, a water ratio of 25.41 per cent. The district counts 330 lakes on Jiangsu's lake-protection list, Lake Tai among them, and 2,663 rivers and canals. Its Lake Tai frontage forms the East Lake Tai resort area, a national tourist resort where Lake Tai, the Grand Canal and the Taipu River (太浦河) meet. The Wujiang system of fish-pond farming and silkworm culture is on China's third preparatory list for globally important agricultural heritage.

History and heritage

Wujiang has two World Heritage components, the Tuisi Garden (退思园) in Tongli, part of the Classical Gardens of Suzhou, and the ancient canal towpath (运河古纤道) on the Grand Canal, along with ten national key cultural relics protection units. The district government names silk, water towns, the canal and the poetry of water shield and perch (莼鲈) among its cultural themes, and counts Fan Li (范蠡), the Tang writer Lu Guimeng (陆龟蒙), the poet Liu Yazi (柳亚子) and the sociologist Fei Xiaotong (费孝通) among its notable people.

What to see

Tongli, in the east of the district 18 kilometres south of Suzhou, became a town in the Song, is a national 5A scenic area and still has its original residents; the district government notes that the Tuisi Garden makes it the only Jiangnan water town containing a World Heritage site. Lili took shape in the Southern Song and keeps close to 100,000 square metres of Ming, Qing and Republican-era buildings in a core zone of 0.69 square kilometres, noted for its lanes, bridges and river banks. Zhenze, whose name is an old name for Lake Tai, became a town under the Southern Song and is described by the district government as the country's only national 4A scenic area built around silk.

At Pingwang (平望), a 4A canal scenic area sits where four waterways meet, with the Ande Bridge (安德桥), Siqian Street (司前街) and Yingdou Lake (莺脰湖) along the old canal. Kaixiangong village (开弦弓村) in Qidu (七都), on the southeast shore of Lake Tai, is the "Jiangcun" that Fei Xiaotong visited 26 times; it became a window on rural China for scholars at home and abroad. The Jingsi Garden (静思园), begun in 1993, holds a large collection of ornamental stones.

Getting oriented

The Shanghai–Suzhou–Huzhou high-speed railway runs through the district, with stations at Suzhou South and Shengze (盛泽). Suzhou Metro Line 4 has 13 stations in Wujiang.

Highlights

• Tongli 同里古镇: Song-dynasty water town and 5A scenic area; home of the World Heritage Tuisi Garden.
• Lili 黎里古镇: Southern Song water town with close to 100,000 square metres of old buildings; a national historic town since 2014.
• Zhenze 震泽古镇: Water town named after Lake Tai's old name, with a scenic area built around silk.
• Kaixiangong village 开弦弓村: Fei Xiaotong's 'Jiangcun', visited by him 26 times.
• Pingwang canal scenic area 吴江运河文化旅游景区: 4A site where four waterways meet on the Grand Canal.