Old Town of Lijiang

Prologue: A Town Without Walls

At dawn, the snowline of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain turns pale gold. Lijiang wakes: three clear canals carry water down from the mountain into the town, threading every street and lane, up to the gate of every house. Someone stands at a well-head, bucket in hand, waiting for the first clear water of the day.

This town has no city wall.

In China, almost every old town of standing has a wall — Lijiang alone has none. The Naxi people have told a tale about this for eight hundred years: the Mu chieftains dreaded seeing the character “Mu” (wood) trapped inside a “mouth” (the enclosing wall), shut in like a prisoner, and so they built no wall. Legend may not be history, but the character of the town lives inside the legend: it never wanted to enclose anything — only to let the water run through.

The Mu Clan’s First Spadeful

In the late Southern Song dynasty, the Naxi Mu chieftains founded the old town of Dayan at the foot of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain — the beginning of Lijiang.

They built by the water: clear canals threaded every street and lane, every household faced the water and slept to its murmur; the streets were paved with Wuhua stone, which never turned to mud in the rain; and the three-eye wells divided the water into orderly stages — for drinking, for washing vegetables, for washing clothes. From its very first market days, Sifang Street was where caravans, traders and mountain folk exchanged goods and news.

A town without walls protects itself with water.

1253: The Hooves of Kublai Khan

In 1253, Yuan armies marched south, and Lijiang was written into the chronicles of a unified empire for the first time.

That year the armies of Kublai Khan passed through; the Mu clan submitted, and the Lijiang Military and Civilian General Prefecture was established. A frontier town beyond the mountains now shared the same calendar and era as the Central Plains — and its position destined it to become the gateway between Yunnan and Tibet.

The Golden Age of the Mu Mansion

The Ming dynasty was Lijiang’s golden age.

The Mu chieftains governed generation after generation; chieftains such as Mu Zeng undertook grand building works, and the Mu Mansion’s “splendour rivalled that of a king’s palace.” Lying on the main route between Yunnan and Tibet, Lijiang saw mule-caravan traders come and go without cease, a major town on the Tea-Horse Road. In the hoof prints of Sifang Street mingled the smells of tea, salt, cloth and butter.

It was in the same era that Dongba culture flourished: the Dongba scriptures, written in pictographs, remain the only pictographic script still in use in the world — every page of scripture a picture that can be read aloud.

1996: When the Earth Trembled

In 1996, an earthquake of magnitude 7 shook Lijiang awake.

The old town was badly damaged; houses fell, streets cracked. But the Naxi people did not tear it down and start afresh — they rescued and restored it, brick by brick, to its original appearance, ancient streets, waterways and dwelling pattern intact. The earthquake shattered the town’s shell, but could not take its skeleton: the three clear canals still run through it.

1997 and Today: Soft Time

In 1997, the Old Town of Lijiang was inscribed on the World Heritage List under criteria (ii), (iv) and (v).

Today, Naxi ancient music sounds in the evening air at Sifang Street, and people still wash rice and clothes at the three-eye wells. The snow mountain, the flowing water, the ancient music and the Dongba scriptures still weave, in this frontier town at an altitude of about 2,400 metres, a slow pastoral.

Epilogue: The Water Still Flows

Back to that dawn.

The snowline is still pale gold, and the clear canals still pass every gate. For eight hundred years Lijiang has learned not to build walls but to channel water — and the town’s deepest wisdom may be this: to live with water is to live with time.

Outstanding Universal Value (OUV)

• Criterion (ii): Lijiang fuses the urban planning wisdom of the Naxi, Han, Tibetan and other peoples.
• Criterion (iv): The water-adjacent streets, waterways and timber-and-earth dwellings are an outstanding example of mountain town planning.
• Criterion (v): The human habitat formed by the town, the snow mountain and the fields is an excellent model of harmony between people and nature.

Facts at a Glance

• Founded in the late Southern Song; at an altitude of about 2,400 metres
• Inscribed in 1997; Naxi ancient music and the Dongba script are living cultural traditions