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Pingyao Overview

Pingyao is a tiny ancient town located in central Shanxi Province, 100 kilometers away from Taiyuan-capital of the province. Originally built in the West Zhou Dynasty, it boasts a long history of over 2,700 years. As its sound preservation of urban landscape in China's Ming and Qing Dynasty, Pingyao was added to the UNESCO's World Heritage List in Dec. 31st 1997.

There are three Key National Relics Protected Units in Pingyao, namely Pingyao City Wall, Shuangxiu Temple, Zhenguo Temple.
The City Wall itself, Streets, buildings and shops are all well preserved from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In 1997, when the UNESCO decided to include the town on the World Heritage List, the comments read "the Ancient City of Ping Yao is an outstanding example of a Han Chinese city of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (14th-20th centuries) that has retained all its features to an exceptional degree and in doing so provides a remarkably complete picture of cultural, social, economic, and religious development during one of the most seminal periods of Chinese history."

"Ping Yao ancient city is the outstanding example of Chinese Han nationality cities during Ming and Qing Dynasties, remaining all features of such periods, Ping yao ancient city reveals a picture of unexpected cultural, social, economic and religious development in Chinese history." -World Relics Committee of UNESCO.
The ancient city of Pingyao, lasting for more than 2,700 years, is almost as old as legends before the recorded history of Chinese nationality.

Pingyao History

Story of its name

Pingyao was called the Ancient Tao before the Dynasties of Qin and Han. According to the Records of Pingyao County, it had been the manor of Yao, who was the king of a union tribe in ancient China. In the Period of Spring & Autumn, the Ancient Tao belonged to the Jin Kingdom, and to the Zhao Kingdom later. The county system replaced the manor system when the First Emperor of Qin unified the whole country. The Ancient Tao was then set as the county location and changed name to Ping Tao. In early Northern Wei Dynasty, Ping Tao was renamed as Pingyao to avoid the pronunciation Tao, because the temporal Emperor was named as Tuoba Tao. According to ancient rules, name of emperor, high official, head of a family, or elder of a clan was regarded as taboo by his subjects or juniors.

History of Pingyao's city wall

According to historical records, in the West Zhou Dynasty, the King of Xuan dispatched his general Yin Jie Fu fighting against invaders of other nationalities. General Yin stationed his troops in the Ancient Tao and constructed defense wall there. In early Ming Dynasty, since the year of 1370 AD, the government had enlarged and reconstructed the city wall to present size for military purpose. In the late 500 years of Ming & Qing Dynasty, the wall had been reconstructed and repaired for 26 times or so, with its basic style and size remained without many changes. From then on, the magnificent wall has been standing there for 600 years through the war flames and natural corrosions. Glints and flash of swords and spears, and flames and explosions of war all have become historical things. Military function of the strong and high city wall has died out. Nowadays the old wall presents to the later generations the changing dynasties and events that occurred in the past thousand years.