Old Pingyao county coming up with new stories

Pingyao county in Shanxi province, with its 2700-year history is redesigning itself to incorporate both traditional and modern elements with the idea of becoming an international tourism city and is getting the whole county and nearby cities to get involved in the planning, infrastructure work, and image building.

And, in the last year alone, it put 12.5 billion yuan ($2 billion) into its transportation network, heritage preservation, infrastructure, security, landscaping, and commercial area development and has gradually been taking on a new look, in the following ways:

Its high-speed railway station on the Datong -Xi'an line (Shanxi to Shaanxi province) is a new landmark, covering 5,000 square meters. It has a square out in front, on 26,000-sq–m of ground as a tourist spot, with surrounding architecture from the Ming (1368－1644) and Qing (1636—1912) dynasties. Visitors can get the feeling that they're walking through history immediately after exiting the station. This project will link the county to other tourist destinations along the railway line so the county plans to add more tourist facilities.

To appeal more to tourists, it is busy improving its environment with engineering projects on, for example, a 7-kilometer stretch of road, a cable network, a better heating system, and a 42,000-sq–m parking lot. Its lighting system was also targeted for improvement, so that now, 98 percent of its streets have lighting, making the nighttime scenery more enjoyable. There is also some greening going on along with the landscape.

And to ensure that its modern development does not come into conflict with its heritage the county worked with UNESCO in June of last year, on a more scientific approach to protecting the old surrounding cities. To make sure the protection work was well organized, experts from the China Cultural Heritage Foundation, Global Heritage Fund, and Shanghai Tongji University were asked to draw up guidelines and give some advice and a lot of money has been spent repairing city walls, reinforcing old buildings, and maintaining old structures.

Edited by Roger Bradshaw