Shouxian Ancient City

National Historic And Cultural City; Song Dynasty Walled Town In Northern Anhui Whose Seven Kilometre Wall Remains A Functioning Flood Defence Against The Huai River · Shouxian, Anhui

Most old Chinese city walls are monuments. The wall at Shouxian is infrastructure. Rebuilt in the eleventh century and running a little over seven kilometres around the town, faced in brick over a rammed core, it stands between a settlement and the Huai River, and it still does the job it was built for - in the great floods of living memory the water came up against it and the town behind stayed dry. The engineering is better than it looks. Each gate has an urn-shaped barbican whose inner and outer arches are deliberately offset so that neither an attacking column nor a wall of water gets a straight run; and set into the base are crescent culverts with a simple one-way arrangement that lets the town drain outwards and shuts when the river rises. Shouxian was a Chu capital, the battle that gave Chinese two famous idioms for panic was fought nearby, and tofu is said to have been invented here.

Shou County, Huainan, Shouxian, Anhui, China

THE CITY WALL IS FREE AND OPEN AT ALL HOURS - there is no gate and no ticket for the seven-kilometre circuit, and local people walk it in the early morning and at dusk. Individual sites inside the wall, including the Confucian temple and the Baogong hall, keep daytime hours and charge modest separate fees; SHOUXIAN MUSEUM is usually free with ID but keeps its own days - bring a passport. The wall is unshaded, so avoid the middle of a summer day. The Huai flood season runs roughly June to August.

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