Zhouzhi Old County Town Official Route 周至老县城正规游览线路

About Zhouzhi Old County Town Official Route

The village's history is a road's history. The Shaanxi Daily report records that it was historically called Foyeping, or Foping, and was an important post station on the Tangluo road, one of the Qinling ancient roads, where merchants travelling between Sichuan and Shaanxi rested, transferred goods and traded. In 1825 the Qing government set up the Foping sub-prefecture with its seat at this site, and the report records that the village's population once reached more than 20,000. As transport between Sichuan and Shaanxi improved, travellers and goods had more routes to choose from, the Tangluo road fell out of use and the office town declined with it. In 1913 Foping was changed from a sub-prefecture to a county, and in 1926 the county seat moved south because of banditry, leaving the office-town site at the village.

The walls are what visitors come for. The report quotes Xue Zhenlong of the Zhouzhi County office for the old Foping town cultural relics explaining that the builders took material on the spot and laid the walls with stones from the banks of the Xu river, which is why the Foping office town is also called the stone city. The wall is an irregular rectangle 6 metres high and 1,197 metres around and is still intact, and the east, west and south gates in particular keep their original appearance. Among the building remains inside are the 衙署大堂, the 同知署, the 考院, the 佛庙, the 城隍庙 and the 文庙, and the site also keeps large numbers of stone pagodas, spirit screens, stone carvings, an iron bell, Buddhist figures, steles, incense burners and brick carvings, among other things. The provincial government's fourth-batch notice lists the site as a Qing-period one at Lao Xiancheng village, Houzhenzi township, Zhouzhi County, and sets its protection boundaries as the city area with the east and west wall foundations extended 30 metres and the south and north wall foundations extended 60 metres, with a further 30 metres beyond on all sides as the building control zone.

The site has been under repair for years. The report records that the county office for the old town has managed and maintained it for more than 20 years, that when it took over the wall was showing signs of collapse from long rain-wash and from expansion and contraction, and that after clearing piled soil, weeds and trees, replacing broken wall and arch bricks, filling cracks, rebuilding gaps in the wall and monitoring deformation, the town has largely recovered its original appearance. The village party secretary Wang Ping is quoted saying that the village works on the principle of repairing as old, that after the traditional-villages listing it received a special fund for traditional-village protection and development, and that it used that to rebuild the main street inside the town and repair the drainage while keeping the original building appearance, and that it also obtained 美丽乡村 project funds to unify the façades of villagers' houses.

The catalogue calls this entry 周至老县城正规游览线路, a formal touring route. No cited source designates a route with stages or waypoints, and none states an access rule or an opening arrangement. What the sources give is an approach: the reporter entered by the west gate of the Foping office town and walked along the main street inside, on blue-brick paving, with clearly marked building remains and uniform traditional-style houses on both sides. The report also records that the village now has only 48 households, that at the busiest point for tourism in recent years it received more than 300,000 visits a year, and that in peak season it receives three to four hundred visitors a day. A villager who has run a farmhouse restaurant for more than ten years is quoted saying that June to August is the busy season; the Shaanxi Daily report gives his takings as more than 5,000 yuan a month and the municipal agriculture bureau's account gives more than 6,000, and the two figures are carried here as each source states them. The municipal bureau records that the village lies inside the Zhouzhi old-county-town protection area, the Heihe water-source protection area and the giant panda corridor, with dense primary forest all around.

What to look for

• The stone walls, an irregular rectangle 6 metres high and 1,197 metres around, laid with stones from the banks of the Xu river and still intact
• The east, west and south gates, which the Shaanxi Daily report records keep their original appearance better than the rest
• The building remains inside the walls, among them the 衙署大堂, the 同知署, the 考院, the 佛庙, the 城隍庙 and the 文庙, together with stone pagodas, spirit screens, stone carvings, an iron bell, Buddhist figures, steles, incense burners and brick carvings
• The main street inside the town, which the reporter walked on blue-brick paving between marked building remains and traditional-style houses, entered from the west gate
• The village itself, now 48 households, which the municipal agriculture bureau records sits inside the Zhouzhi old-county-town protection area, the Heihe water-source protection area and the giant panda corridor
• The surroundings the Shaanxi Daily report describes, a traditional village deep in the Qinling, ringed by mountains with streams running through it in dense forest

Location & getting there

Getting to Zhouzhi Old County Town Official Route

Identify the main visitor approach and any separately managed houses, museums or performances. Ask before entering residential spaces or photographing residents.

• Search for 周至老县城正规游览线路 with 西安市 and 周至县.