Xingcheng Ancient City

National Key Cultural Relic Protection Unit; A Ming Garrison City Of 1428, One Of The Four Best Preserved Ming Walled Cities In China · Xingcheng, Liaoning

A square Ming garrison town on the Liaodong coast, walls complete on all four sides, and the only one of China's four best-preserved Ming walled cities that also has a beach ten minutes away. It was built in 1428 as Ningyuan, a forward fort guarding the corridor between the Great Wall and Manchuria, and in 1626 it was where Yuan Chonghuan held out against Nurhaci's army using Portuguese cannon - the Ming's only real battlefield success against the rising Manchu power, and the reason the town has a statue of him and a complicated reputation, since the emperor later had Yuan executed anyway. Inside the walls it is still a working town rather than a restored shell: single-storey courtyard houses, a Ming drum tower at the crossroads, two stone memorial archways of the 1630s, a Confucian temple, and residents drying chillies in the lanes. You can walk the full circuit of the ramparts. Beidaihe gets the Beijing crowds; Xingcheng gets a fraction of them and keeps more of its Ming fabric.

Xingcheng Ancient City, Huludao, Xingcheng, Liaoning, China

The old town itself is a working town and its streets are open at all hours and free to walk. The RAMPARTS, drum tower, Confucian temple and Zumiao are ticketed, generally 8:00-17:00 or 18:00 in summer with shorter winter hours. A combination ticket covers all four; individual tickets are sold separately. The beach is free and is busiest July to August. Rampart steps ice over in winter.

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