Brief information on Pingyao Ancient Town  

Located in the central Shanxi Province, Pingyao Ancient Town is a well-known historical cultural city boasting a long history of more than 2,700 years. With the total area of 2.25 square kilometers, the ancient town is home to 42, 0000 residents at present time, and all the architectures here are all well preserved from the Ming and Qing Dynasty.

Pingyao, reputed as the “the Wall Street in China” during the Qing Dynasty, was the home of the famous Shanxi Merchant who was a powerful trading family with significant commercial influence in the whole China at that time. The first bank of China, Rishengchang, was established here, and since then the town of Pingyao became the banking center of China, with its golden age in the 19th Century. However, the town quickly fell into poverty and thus getting out the rapid modernization and development, made it looks pretty much as the same as it did in the Ming and Qing Dynasty.

On 31st December 1997, Pingyao Ancient Town was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, citing Pingyao as “an outstanding example of a Han Chinese city of the Ming and Qing Dynasty (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, and religious development during one of the most seminal periods of Chinese history”.

*You can download the bilingual note to show it to a taxi driver or someone else to find your way to Pingyao Ancient Town if you plan to visit Pingyao Ancient Town and have language problems.