Zhiyan Ancient Village

Zhiyan Village, originally built during the Southern Song Dynasty, has a history of over 800 years. It was formerly known as Zhixi Village due to the presence of Zhi Creek and a water dam within the village. This ancient village, located at the border of Lanxi and Jiande, was once a bustling post station on the ancient road from Yanzhou to Jinhua. However, like many villages whose fortunes changed with transportation, the construction of highways led to the obscurity of the ancient path, and Zhiyan fell silent. This silence has allowed the preservation of ancient architecture in its entirety.

Zhiyan Village is known as the ‘Little Lijiang of the South of the Yangtze’. Like Lijiang, every household in Zhiyan has meandering waterways in front of their doors, but the water in Zhiyan is much clearer. As you walk through the village alleys, the sound of water is a constant companion. The age, quantity, exquisite structure, and complete preservation of the ancient buildings in Zhiyan Village are rare. The village boasts nearly a hundred ancient buildings, including Yan De Hall, Xiao Si Hall, and Cheng Xian Hall, and it is a concentration of various architectures from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, earning it the title of ‘A Typical Museum of Chinese Ancient Residential Architecture’. It is praised by architectural research experts as ‘a living fossil’ in architectural research and ‘a village of architectural treasures from four dynasties’. Representative buildings include ‘Xiao Si Hall’, ‘Yan De Hall’, ‘Ji Mei Hall’, and ‘Cheng Zhi Hall’, each with distinctive structures and well-preserved. Xiao Si Hall, the Chen family’s ancestral hall, consists of three sections with a central axis featuring a front hall, main hall, and rear hall, flanked by side rooms. The main hall spans three bays with a surrounding veranda and a hip roof. The residential buildings in Zhiyan Village provide significant physical materials for the study of traditional village culture and the evolution of residential architecture.

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Zhiyan Village also possesses four natural landscapes: Immortal Stone, Strange Peak, Divine Boat, and Divine Cauldron. The ‘Immortal Stone’ is about two miles from the village, standing three to four meters high and four to five meters long, split down the middle, said to be cut by an immortal with a blade of grass. ‘Strange Peak’ is about three to four miles away from the village, resembling a wind-riding ear; any conversation in the village can be heard clearly beneath the Strange Peak. ‘Divine Boat’ is a small hill in Zhiyan Reservoir, shaped like an overturned boat, hidden in summer and visible in autumn, with a fascinating and illusory scenery. ‘Divine Cauldron’ refers to a naturally formed large water tank in the Kangwu Valley, said to be used by immortals to store water for alchemy. It is believed that the vapor emanating from the cauldron daily can eliminate wrinkles and preserve youth, thus being regarded as a sacred object by the villagers.

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The entire text is open all year round from 7:30 to 17:00. Preferential policy additional information: 1. Free policy: Children under 1.2 meters (not including) are free of charge. 2. The above information is for reference only; please refer to the information disclosed by the scenic spot on the day.

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