Suzhou Attractions

The Lingering Garden

The Lingering Garden was listed from the first as cultural relics of national importance in 1961. With an area of 23,310 square meters, it is celebrated for its artistic way of dealing with the spaces between various kinds of architectural form. Buildings make up one third of the total area of the garden, the hall of which being the most remarkable in Suzhou. The garden is separated into the middle, eastern, northern and western parts. The ancestral temple and the house lie to the south of the garden.

Featuring man-made mountain and lake scenery in the west and garden courts in the east, the middle part of the garden is the original site of the Xu's East Garden and the Liu's Hanbi Villa, and is regarded as the best part of the whole garden. The eastern, northern and western parts are the extensions of the Sheng's Garden.

Suzhou Silk Museum

Silk production in China has a history of 6,000 years. As early as the fifth century B.C., silk was exported to Asia, Europe and Africa along the Old Silk Road, making an outstanding contribution to world civilization. Suzhou has been a silk producer for centuries, and China's first silk museum was built in this ancient city. Suzhou Silk Museum is multi-functional, and combines exhibits with demonstrations of silk weaving. Exhibits on display in its various exhibition halls reflect the origin, evolution and development of silk production, from primitive times to the Shang, Zhou, Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties right through to present day.

The Humble Administrator's Garden

Located in the northeastern part of Suzhou, Zhuozhengyuan (Humble Administrator's Garden), with a total area of 51,950 square meters (5.2 hectares), is the largest private garden in Suzhou. It has been listed as one of the four most famous national classic gardens together with the Summer Palace, Mountain Summer Resort in Chengde and Lingering Garden of Suzhou. The garden is a masterpiece of Ming Dynasty Chinese classic garden. With the central pond on focus, it is a compound of various structures, including pavilions, terraces, chambers and towers, which are divided into the eastern, middle and western parts. The middle part is the cream of the garden with marvelous hills, clear waters, exquisite buildings and exuberant trees and flowers. The buildings in the western part of the garden are properly arranged around the lake.

Hanshan Temple

Hanshan Temple is located in the town of Fengqiao (Maple Bridge) in the west outskirts of Suzhou, only one kilometer west of the Lingering Garden. During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), a famous monk named Hanshan stayed in the temple, which was later renamed by his name. The temple was once one of the 10 most famous temples in China. Zhang Ji, a famous Tang-dynasty poet, wrote the poem "A Night Mooring by Maple Bridge," which, consequently, made the temple even more popular nationwide. Hanshan Temple has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. The present complex was from the reign of Emperors Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty. The main architectural structures in the temple include the Main Hall, Circular Gallery, Sutra Library, Bell Tower, and a pavilion known as Maple River Tower.