Explore the region
About Millennium City Park
The artificial waterway links market streets, bridges and performance areas, with Rainbow Bridge forming a central visual focus. The southern garden concentrates on everyday Song-style city scenes, while the broader park mixes architecture with live interpretation. Its appeal lies in moving through a three-dimensional reading of the painting, with performances varying by the day’s programme.
Millennium City Park opened on 28 October 1998 as a Song dynasty culture theme park built to the standards of the Yingzao Fashi (营造法式) construction manual, themed on Song market culture, folk customs, the royal garden and ancient entertainment, with visitor participation as a stated feature. In 2009 it was recognised as China's first antique theme park modelled on a painting.
The park covers more than 600 mu (亩), including about 120 mu of water, with 10,000 square metres of building floor space. Shuangting Bridge (双亭桥) divides it into a southern and a northern garden laid out in eight themed zones, including a post station, a food street, a Song-culture display and a shopping area. In the southern garden the winding Bian River (汴河) threads the sights in the shape of a ruyi knot (如意结), with Rainbow Bridge (虹桥) at its midpoint.
Rainbow Bridge, one of China's ten renowned bridges, rises 5 metres and spans 25 metres, a scale rarely built in the Song dynasty. The northern garden follows a royal-garden and entertainment theme based on the Qing-court version of the painting, centred on Jinglong Lake (景龙湖), and includes the Waterside Hall (临水大殿), the Nine Dragon Bridge (九龙桥) and Fuyun Pavilion (拂云阁).
What to look for
- Rainbow Bridge and the winding waterway that organise the recreated city scene.
- Song-style market streets and craft or performance areas within the garden.
The surrounding area
A provincial city base for food traditions and a Gulou-area evening.
Location & getting there
Getting to Millennium City Park
Go to 5 Longting West Road on the western side of the Longting lake area in Kaifeng. Check the park’s current programme and ticket arrangement before choosing an arrival time, especially if a specific evening performance is your main reason for visiting.
Combine your visit
A suggested sequence linking the specific features of this visit.
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Southern market streets
Begin with the recreated everyday life and shopfront setting.
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Rainbow Bridge
See how the central bridge links the river and surrounding streets.
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Performance area
Choose a currently scheduled presentation that adds context to the reconstructed city.
This order is editorial. Confirm access and any transfers between stops; it does not establish a walking route, same-day connection or common admission ticket.
Find Millennium City Park
清明上河园 · 开封市
The pin marks the area, not the entrance.
More places nearby
Approximate straight-line distances between map pins, not travel distances.
Dragon Pavilion 龙亭
1 km awayDragon Pavilion stands on a high brick platform above the lakes of northern central Kaifeng. The visible hall belongs to the later history of a site occupied by earlier palaces; it should not be read as an intact Northern Song…
View guide →Kaifeng 开封
2 km awayKaifeng’s former capital status is visible through a mixture of surviving monuments and later recreations. The Song-period Iron Pagoda provides an architectural anchor, while Daxiangguo Temple and the raised Dragon Pavilion…
View guide →Daxiangguo Temple 大相国寺
2 km awayDaxiangguo Temple’s present buildings largely reflect rebuilding after the floods that devastated Kaifeng. The sequence of halls is distinguished by sculpture, especially the four-sided, many-armed Guanyin in the octagonal…
View guide →Sources & visit information
The sources below support the place-specific description and arrival information. Suggested combinations are editorial planning ideas; confirm current opening, entry arrangements and transport services for your date.
Visitor information adapted and edited from Wikipedia contributors, “清明上河园” · CC BY-SA 4.0. Source revision 94122894.
Visitor information adapted and edited from Wikivoyage contributors, listing “Kaifeng Qingming River Garden” · CC BY-SA 4.0.
Background paragraphs translated and condensed from Wikipedia contributors, "清明上河园", Chinese Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0. Source revision 94122894.