Du Fu Thatched Cottage 杜甫草堂

About Du Fu Thatched Cottage

The original hut has gone; a reconstruction divides the imagined domestic space into study, bedroom and kitchen. Gongbu Shrine and the Hall of Great Poets broaden the visit with biographical interpretation, poetry and images of other writers. Pair the modest cottage reconstruction with one formal hall to understand the difference between the poet’s life and his later commemoration.

Du Fu (杜甫, 712-770) came to Chengdu with his family in the winter of 759, fleeing the An Lushan rebellion, and with help from Yan Wu (严武) spent over a year building a thatched hut beside the Huanhua Creek (浣花溪), where he lived for three years and nine months and wrote more than 240 poems. After Yan Wu died in 765 the family left Chengdu, and in 766 the site passed to the wife of the Xichuan military governor, who made it her residence and later donated it as a temple.

Late in the Tang dynasty the poet Wei Zhuang found the ruins and rebuilt the hut; the site then underwent fourteen further rounds of major repair through the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the largest in 1500 and 1811, fixing its present scale and layout. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) the complex was damaged, and the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake most severely damaged the Duling Chun (杜陵春) building, affecting 652 square metres.

The complex covers 24 hectares beside what is now Huanhuaxi Park (浣花溪公园) in Qingyang district. It was listed among the first batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level in 1961, rated a national 4A tourist attraction in 2006, and named a first-batch National First-Class Museum in 2008.

What to look for

• The reconstructed cottage presents a study, bedroom and kitchen.
• The Hall of Great Poets contains a mural inspired by Du Fu’s poems and statues of notable Chinese poets.

Location & getting there

Getting to Du Fu Thatched Cottage

The museum is at 37 Qinghua Road in Qingyang district. Caotang North Road station on Metro Line 4 is a named approach; continue south towards the museum’s signed entrance.