Lingering Garden

Lingering Garden is famous for its delicate building distribution and numerous rare stones. It initially functioned as Xu Taishi’s personal garden in the Ming Dynasty, then was later renamed Hanbi Villa by Liu Shu in the Qing Dynasty. In 1961, it was listed as part of the country’s first batch of key cultural relics under state protection and is also considered one of the “Four Famous Chinese Gardens” together with Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou, the Summer Palace in Beijing, and Chengde Summer Resort in the Hebei Province. It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. 

As a typical and representative garden of the Yangtze Delta in China, Lingering Garden covers an area of over 23,310 square meters, combining residences, ancestral halls, and gardens perfectly as one. It can be divided into four sections on the whole: the middle, eastern, northern, and western sections, with winding corridors connecting each section.

The middle section is centered by a pond and is located at the original site of Hanbi Villa. Man-made mountains lie in the western and northern parts, whereas buildings reside in the eastern and southern parts, often considered the best sights of Lingering Garden. Winding streams flow between the mountains, connecting them, and all are overgrown with ancient trees, creating a mysterious atmosphere. The eastern section, on the other hand, is noted for its archaic buildings and strangely shaped stones. The atmosphere in western section is rather quiet, surrounded by woody hills. Finally, the northern section is idyllic and peaceful, scattered with bamboo huts.

The architecture in the garden is very unique in structure and distribution, often playing on the contrasts between big and small, straight and crooked, high and low, and light and shadow. More interestingly, visitors can get drastically different views from different positions. The most famous scenic spots in the garden are Crane House, Small Garden of Stone Forest, Celestial Hall of Five Peaks, Pellucid Tower, Green Shade Pavilion, and Guanyun Hall. There is also a winding corridor that stretches for over 600 meters like a labyrinthine leading to infinity with famous calligraphies embedded throughout.