Three days in Pingyao: a Ming walled town that got too poor to knock down

Two nights inside the walls: the ramparts and the magistrate's court on arrival, China's first bank and two very old temples the next day, and a merchant's compound on the way out.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Pingyao
Places
7 across 3 days
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Pingyao is what a Chinese county town looked like before the twentieth century, and the reason it still exists is unromantic. Shanxi's merchant banks lost their business to modern ones around 1900, the town became poor, and nobody had the money to demolish anything. Then everybody else demolished theirs.

So what is here is complete: the full Ming wall with the moat still round it, the magistrate's court where the county was actually governed, a grid of grey courtyard houses, and the counting house where the first cheque in China was written.

It is small. You can walk from one wall to the other in twenty five minutes. That, plus the two temples outside and a merchant's palace up the road, is a comfortable two nights and a very cramped one.

Highlights

  • The wall walk at either end of the day, six kilometres round with the moat below and the grey roofs inside
  • The Rishengchang exchange house, where Chinese remittance banking was invented in the 1820s
  • The county yamen, with the courtroom, the cells, the magistrate's private quarters and the punishment yard all intact
  • The painted statuary at Shuanglin Temple, ten halls of it, the best of it Song and Yuan work
  • Pingyao beef in a griddled flatbread, eaten standing up outside the south gate

Where to stay

Pingyao, two nights

Stay inside the walls in a courtyard guesthouse. That is most of the point of coming: rooms off a paved courtyard, a brick kang bed under the window, and lanterns outside your door.

The rooms are often cold in the shoulder seasons and the plumbing is variable, so check heating before booking in spring or autumn. Anything outside the walls is a modern hotel in a modern town.

Day by day

Day 1 in Pingyao

Up on the wall, then how the county was run

Go up on the wall first. It is six kilometres round with seventy two watchtowers, and walking even a third of it gives you the whole plan of the town: a grid of grey tiled courtyards, a drum tower in the middle, and fields immediately outside.

Then the yamen, which is the best thing in Pingyao and the one most people rush. It is the complete apparatus of imperial local government in one compound: the court where cases were heard in public, the cells, the granary, the tax office and the magistrate's family quarters behind.

Across the street, and deliberately balanced against it, is the temple to the city god, who was understood to run the same county in the spirit world. The pairing is not a coincidence and the two buildings were sited to mirror each other.

Stay out after dark. The lanterns come on, the day trippers leave, and the streets belong to the town again.

  1. 15:00

    City Walls

    Visit

    Six kilometres of Ming wall, begun in 1370 on much older earth foundations, with the moat still in place and towers every few dozen metres. Go up at the south gate. The whole circuit takes about two hours; a third of it takes forty minutes and gives you the idea.

  2. 17:00

    Pingyao County Yamen Museum

    Visit

    The county government office, complete: courtroom, cells, granary, treasury and the magistrate's own house behind. Staff put on a short re-enactment of a court case a few times a day, which is aimed at Chinese visitors and is fun anyway.

  3. 19:15

    Temple of the City God

    Religious

    The temple of the city god, placed on the same street as the yamen and the same distance from the main crossroads, on the principle that the spirit world needed an administration matching the human one. Glazed roof tiles, and a quiet courtyard at the back.

With more time: Pingyao beef is the local speciality, cured and sliced thin, and the flatbread stalls near the south gate sell it in a griddled bun for the price of a coffee.

Day 2 in Pingyao

The first bank in China, and two thousand painted figures

In the 1820s a dye merchant on West Street noticed that his branches were shipping silver around the country under armed guard and losing it, and started issuing paper drafts instead. Rishengchang was the result: the country's first draft bank, with branches from Manchuria to Guangdong.

The building is small and looks like an ordinary shop, which is the point. There are counters, a strongroom, a code book for authenticating drafts, and a room of ledgers. Shanxi merchants ran the country's money from here for about eighty years.

In the afternoon go out to Shuanglin, six kilometres southwest, which is the best reason to leave the walls. Ten halls, more than two thousand coloured figures modelled in clay, and a body of Song and Yuan sculpture that is among the finest anywhere in China.

Zhenguo, north of town, is smaller and more specialised, and its principal hall is the last building anywhere in China in the tenth century Five Dynasties style.

  1. 09:00

    Rishengchang Exchange House

    Historic

    The first remittance bank in China, opened in the 1820s, in the shop it always occupied. Counters, strongroom, ledgers and the cipher used to authenticate drafts. Small and unshowy, and the whole Shanxi merchant story is in it.

  2. 13:00

    Shuanglin Temple

    Religious

    A Buddhist complex founded some fifteen hundred years ago, holding more than two thousand painted clay figures across ten halls, the best of them Song and Yuan. Six kilometres southwest and part of the same world heritage listing. Allow ninety minutes and take a taxi.

  3. 15:30

    Zhenguo Temple

    Religious

    A thousand year old temple twelve kilometres north whose main hall is the only building left in China in the Five Dynasties style. Small, rarely visited, and worth combining with Shuanglin in one taxi run.

With more time: Several other merchant houses inside the walls are on the same combined ticket, and one or two of them are enough. They are variations on the same courtyard plan and the ledgers at Rishengchang tell the story better.

Day 3 in Pingyao

A merchant's compound on the road north

The Shanxi bankers put their money into houses, and the family compounds scattered around this part of the province are the result: fortified courtyard palaces with grey brick walls, watchtowers and dozens of interlinked yards.

The Qiao compound is the famous one, thirty kilometres north, built from 1756 by a man who made his money selling tea and bean curd in Inner Mongolia. Six main courtyards laid out in the shape of a character meaning double happiness, and a hundred and thirteen rooms.

It was the location for Raise the Red Lantern, which is why it is busy, and it is still the clearest picture of how these families lived.

It sits on the road towards Taiyuan, which makes it a sensible last stop before a train or a flight from there.

  1. 09:00

    Qiao Family Compound

    Other

    A walled merchant's compound begun in 1756 and extended by four generations, with six main courtyards, more than a hundred rooms and a defensive outer wall. Thirty kilometres north of Pingyao, and on the way to Taiyuan.

With more time: The Wang family compound, further south, is four times the size and much less visited, with fifty four courtyards climbing a hillside. If you have a full day rather than a morning, take that one instead.

Before you go

Getting there and around

High speed trains stop at Pingyao Ancient City station, about ten minutes out of town by taxi, with services from Beijing in about three and a half hours and from Xi'an in about three. The old station is nearer the walls and slower.

Inside the walls there are no cars. It is all walking, and the distances are trivial.

The temples outside and the family compounds up the road need a taxi or a driver hired for a few hours. Guesthouses arrange this routinely and it is not expensive.

The combined ticket

One ticket covers about twenty sites inside the walls, including the wall itself, the yamen, the exchange house, the temples and half a dozen former merchant residences. It is valid for a few days and is far better value than paying individually.

Buy it at the gate or online. You will need a passport, and the ticket is scanned at each site.

Do not try to see all twenty. Six or seven are genuinely interesting and the rest are variations on a courtyard with furniture in it.

When to come

April to June and September to October. Shanxi is dry and continental, so summer is hot and dusty and winter is very cold with a wind straight off the loess plateau.

The town is small enough to feel crowded when the coach parties are in, roughly eleven to four. Early morning and after dark are when it is worth being there.

Avoid the first week of October, when Pingyao is one of the busiest domestic destinations in the country.

Pingyao survived by accident. The banks failed, the railways went elsewhere, the money left, and a town that had nothing to build with was still standing when the rest of China had rebuilt itself twice.

That is worth remembering as you walk the wall. Almost nothing here was preserved on purpose, which is exactly why it is the last complete example of something that used to be ordinary.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Is one night enough for Pingyao?
It covers the walls, the yamen and the bank, and it misses the two temples and the compounds, which are the other half of what makes the area worth the detour. Two nights is the right length and it does not feel long.
How do I get to Pingyao?
High speed trains stop at Pingyao Ancient City station, three and a half hours from Beijing and about three from Xi'an, which makes it a natural break between the two. The station is ten minutes from the walls by taxi and guesthouses will collect you.
Is it too touristy?
Between eleven and four the main streets are full of coach parties and shops selling the same lacquerware. Before nine and after six it empties completely and the town is genuinely quiet. Staying inside the walls is what makes the difference, so the answer depends entirely on when you walk around.
Do I need the combined ticket?
Yes, if you want the wall, the yamen and the bank, which are all on it and are the three things worth seeing. It covers about twenty sites over a few days and costs less than paying for four of them separately.
Can I change this plan?
Yes. Copy it into the planner, swap the Qiao compound for the much larger Wang one, or drop the last morning if you are heading straight on to Xi'an.