Huangshan >> Shexian County

Attraction Typ: Ancient City

Location: about 70 km from city

Recommend: 3 Star

Shexian County

Shexian County is the home of art and culture in the southwestern China and a perfect place to examine the culture of ancient China's feudal society.

Shexian County (Chinese: 歙县; pinyin: Shèxiàn) is an old county having a long history and it's the hometown of Confucius and Mencius, meaning that Shexian County is the home of art and culture in the southwestern China. It is located at the southern foot of the Yellow Mountain, in the upper reaches of the Xin'an River, surrounded by mountains and streams.

With green mountains and crystal-clear rivers, Shenxian has many well-preserved ancient gardens, archways, pagodas, pavilions, and bridges. Experts refer to the unique ancient residential houses, ancient temples and memorial archways as "the three wonders of ancient architecture." The most famous ones are: Tangyue Archways, Xuguo Archway, Doushan Street and Yuliang Dam.

Besides the home of art and culture, Shexian is also regarded as one of the places where the art of miniature landscape originated due to most villages of Maihuayu Village are expert gardeners specializing in raising pretty bonsai.

To the west of the Taibai Bridge, the Taibai Building is the place one must pass by from Huangshan Mountain to the Qiandao Lake. The building is of the typical Anhui-style and features two storeys with exhibitions of steles, and scriptures of all dynasties. Climbing up the building, one can enjoy the scenery of the old bridges and pagodas.

Shexian has two nicknames: "Hometown of Archways" for the thousands of arches scattered in the county and "Hometown of Tea" for the production of high quality tea in large quantity. Actually, Shexian County is a perfect place to examine the culture of ancient China's feudal society.