Beijing Forbidden City, built 600 years ago, is the largest royal palace in today’s world. But it pales in comparison with Nanjing Forbidden City built 30 years earlier in the late 14th century.
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Sunken courtyard dwellings are commonly seen along the Yellow River in Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan provinces in northern China where the soil is super compact, almost like concrete. Though built with yellow earth, they are green buildings.
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It is said that if you want to know how Shanghai looks in the recent decades, you should go to Pudong; if you want to know how Shanghai looked a hundred years ago, you should go to The Bund; and if you want to know how Shanghai looked a thousand years ago, you should go to Qibao.
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Beijing Capital Airport was opened in 1958 and by now it is the world’s second-busiest behind Atlanta in the US, thus the second Beijing airport has been built in Daxing to take the pressure off the overcrowded existing international terminal in southern Beijing. The new Daxing International Airport is situated 46km south of the city centre in the historically backward […]
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Ancient water town Qiandeng (千灯) is located in Suzhou’s Kunshan, where Kunqu, the mother of all Chinese operas, was originated. The waterfront of most Chinese towns are traditionally allocated as public space. In Qiandeng, an eleborated pavilion is also erected in the form of a boat, which can be used for Kungqu opera performance. The main shopping street of Qiandeng […]
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Wenfeng Pagoda (Cultural Peak Pagoda) in Fenyang, Shanxi Province, was built at the end of the Ming Dynasty in the middle of the 17th century. The structure is 84.93 metres tall and has 13 floors. After a magnitude 6 earthquake in 1932, the pagoda began to tilt towards the east and, further owing to the collapsible nature of the yellow […]
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The building in the cliff edge is a library in the ancient Cloud Rock Temple (云岩寺) in Sichuan Province. There are a thousand paths to enlightenment, but only two ways to access the 1,000-year-old sutra library: one is via a long and winding mountain track that is time-consuming, and another is a shortcut through a bridge formed by just two […]
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Blessing Light Pagoda (瑞光塔) near Pan Water Gate in Suzhou has 8 elevations and 7 floors with a total height of 43m. The ancient pagoda was part of a large Buddhist monastery next to the 2,500-year-old city gate. However, in 1860, the monastery was burned to the ground in a war, with a structurally damaged pagoda being the sole survivor left in […]
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Yueyang Terrace Pavilion Looming on the shore of Lake Dongting in Hunan province, Yeyang Terrace (岳阳楼) is one of the three most celebrated ancient multistory pavilion architectures in the south of Yangtze River. In the pavilion, there is one of China’s most celebrated couplets composed by Fan Zhongyan (范仲淹), a great statesman, philosopher, writer, educator, military strategist and philanthropist: 先天下之忧而忧，后天下之乐而乐: Be the […]
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What are the secrets for Forbidden City to surviving so many earthquakes in 600 years? To find the answer, specialist carpenters have built a one to five scale model to replicate the classic Forbidden City structure onDou a shake table to simulate earthquake forces. To be as accurate as possible, the model is made using traditional Chinese carpentry tools and […]
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Ying County Buddhist Pagoda, situated in Shanxi Province in northern China’s Yellow Plateau, is the oldest surviving timber-frame pagoda in the world. The pagoda was built in 1056 during the North Song Dynasty, measuring 67 metres tall and 30 metres in diameter, supported by a double-layered timber-frame structure, with 24 columns in the external supporting system and 8 columns forming […]
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An Ancient Chinese Village Built in Eight Trigrams Military Formation This is Village of Eight Trigrams located in Lanxi, Zhejiang Province in China’s east coastal region. In the centre, there is a Taichi-shaped pond surrounded by village houses arranged in eight groups as an Inner Eight Trigrams. Around the village in a short distance, eight hills form an Outer Eight […]
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